Zotaxian War of Coalescence - Lego Fan Fiction
Unifying the Lego UFO & Lego Insectoid Lore from the Mid-1990s
Author note: this is a piece of fan fiction based on the Lego lore surrounding the 1996-1998 Lego subthemes of UFO and Insectoids, which fall under the Space Theme. These were thee absolute coolest Lego sets ever. My first Lego set was a Shell gas station promotional UFO Lego 2543 Spacecraft with Chamon as the minifig. My dad bought it for me when I was 5 or 6 and it opened my mind to the world of science fiction. It was awesome. I went on to collect several other UFO sets, as well as many Insectoid sets. I always pretended the UFO and the Insectoids occupied the same universe as a kid, only to find out earlier this year that the official Lego lore had stated that they not only did occupy the same universe, but they were actually one and the same race of aliens, they were all Zotaxians from the planet Zotax. The “Insectoids” were not the name of the aliens but of their vehicles. So I went on an obsessive deep dive while procrastinating on many other projects and found several disparate sets of lore surrounding the two sub-themes. I decided I owed it to my childhood self to write a story which unified the best of the disparate lores and the following is my attempt.
I also decided I needed some high quality depictions of what the Zotaxians might look like un-legofied. After scouring the interwebs, I found the coolest picture of exactly what I was looking for drawn by Ryder Tost on his instagram.
I knew I had to commission him for this story and he exceeded all my expectations. Go give him a follow and hire him for your own work! And Lego, if you’re reading this, 1. don’t sue me, it’s fan fiction, and 2. yes, Ryder and I would love to team up and create more lore for your stuff for the right price. Holler at us!
If you want to check out the Lego sub-themes, minifigs, and sets mentioned in this short story, as well as some of the lore I pulled from, check out the Zotaxian page at Brickapedia.
Enjoy the story.
Zotaxian War of Coalescence
¤¥§£ ±±~ ¤¢¤ ¥ ‡ ¬ ° ž± ‡Ž |~|* £§ ¤+ ¤•¢ ¤ •… [translation forthcoming] … They say that history is written by the victors and that truth is what your contemporaries let you get away with. As the newly minted emperor of the reunified Zotaxian people, I suppose that it is my right to give an account of the War of Coalescence and my role in it. I will give my account as I see it, but I will not embellish, nor will I twist the events in my favor. Truth is a correspondence to the obtaining states of affairs, to the facts, to reality. Reality is that which truth is about. I will share the truth with my people, the facts as they played out. I have nothing to hide.
I, Emperor Maverick, former grand lieutenant of the Zotaxian Adapticum—pejoratively referred to as “The Insectoids”—under Gypsy Moth, the deposed empress of Zotax, queen of Holox, scribe this account with my own metacarpus. Let all of Zotax know what their former masters did in the dark. I will bring their deeds to light. Those who are of the truth will hear the truth and rejoice. I will not lead as a coward and I will not hide behind shadows and lies.
The following is the full account of the bifurcation of the Zotaxian people into disparate factions: the change-averse Imperial Traditionalists, and the Zotaxian Adaptionists. It shall be the official recounting of the banishment of the Adapts under the wicked Emperor Zatam and his regime, and how the Adapticum turned the tides of the civil war, rose to power, unified the Zotaxian people once more, delivering our mother world from impending destruction. As an old sage once said, “a pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered.” I take no pleasure in the disharmony of the Zotaxian people, however, I am exceptionally pleased with the Zotaxian coalescence which has been achieved since the end of the war. Here, we remember what we’ve overcome.
Exile
In the year Z71935, it became apparent to many imperial planetologists, energeiists, thermodynamicists, mycologists and others in various subfields of the Imperial Scientium, that the planet Zotax was undergoing changes. As any Zotaxian will know, the surface of our rock planet is partially enveloped by the Grūn Limus, the green slimeoid organism which provides Zotax its atmosphere. The Imperial Scientium discovered that the Grūn Limus’s metabolic need was growing beyond what our suns could offer. We needed a supplementary form of energy to feed our Limus if Zotax was to continue to be habitable for Zotaxians. Various sciscitators in subfields of the Scientium suggested competing theories for how best to prepare and survive on Zotax, the planet of our ancestors. But all agreed that we’d have to adapt to the changing world. The growing metabolic rate of the Grūn Limus was slight at first, but would grow more apparent and would begin to advance at a rate approaching that of ‘exponential’.
The imperial sciscitators proposed various solutions to our impending calamity, but all of the solutions could be categorized into one of two major proposals: external adaptations, concerning our technology and our environment; or internal adaptations, changing our own race.
Some sciscitators argued that we should focus our efforts on adapting and utilizing new forms of energy accumulation—both for feeding the Grūn Limus, as well as for powering our own technology. If a new source of energy or a new manner of capturing solar fusion were developed, then it wouldn’t matter how quickly the Limus grew, so long as our accumulation of energy could match or exceed its growth. Others argued that we ought to augment our own Zotaxian DNA, or transform ourselves in some other fashion, in order to survive in an increasingly changing environment, such as incorporating techdroid mechanics into our own corporeal modes of being.
Fearing both benign changes, as well as political upheaval and imperial heads on plasma spikes, the wretched Emperor Zatam chose not only to ignore the findings, warnings, and proposals of those in the Scientium, but he also began the intense persecution of any of those who mentioned any changes in the planet Zotax and Zotaxian culture writ large.
Zatam’s persecution quickly lead to the formation of factions on either side of the issue. Those who sought adaptations, whether external or internal, quickly became known as Adaptionists, or ‘Adapts’ for short. The Emperor’s propaganda machine quickly invented vile and calumnious phrases to label us instead, though I will not repeat such grotesquery here. He termed his faction the ‘Imperial Traditionalists’, claiming that our movement sought to erode the very foundation of the Zotaxian heritage, while ultimately plotting to wrest power away from himself in a coup. He maliciously claimed that, whereas his party sought to preserve order, rule of law, and the Zotaxian way of life, our party would invite only comprise leading to downfall.
The imperial persecution was fierce and the Adapts were nearly exterminated when the tide finally turned in our favor. The polymathic Techno Leon, tutor to the house imperial, camouflaged his Adapt allegiance and finally, at great personal risk to himself, convinced the empress Gypsy Moth of both the veracity of our position as well as our plight under her lord emperor. Once Gypsy Moth publicly announced her sympathy with and dedication to our cause, the emperor’s hands were tied. He could no longer continue his villainous and cowardly slaughter of the Adapts in the shadows.
Rather than sentence his own empress to death, the emperor chose exile for her instead, along with all the remaining Adapts, forcing us off the only home we’ve ever known. He did this all under the guise of an ‘exploratory mission’ wherein we might “experiment freely” with new “adaptionist techniques of survival”.
Publicly, Zatam charged us with the responsibility to report back to himself and the sycophantic sciscitators who remained loyal to him—and who in turn were spared banishment along with us. We were to report any results which might shed “new light” on potential Zotaxian energy advancements. But let the reader be sure of this, emperor Zatam sent us to our death. We had no warning—no true period of preparation as any genuine exploration would necessitate. He banished us in ancient craft from before the second illumination, without even affording us a singular techdroid to aid in the many repairs which would be necessitated by our long compulsory voyage—let alone the repairs which the ships already needed upon launch. While we were officially charged with reporting findings, no one expected to hear from the Adapticum after our banishment ever again.
All in all, close to fifty thousand remaining Adapts were banished to be led by the six remaining high-ranking leaders of the Adapticum: Captain Wizer, Empress Gypsy Moth, Grand Lt. Maverick (myself), Corporal Steel, Professor Web, and Techno Leon. Captain Wizer, the de facto leader of the Adapts prior to his abdication to Queen Gypsy Moth upon arrival to the planet Holox—also known as planet ‘Armeron’—was stripped of his position as dragoon leader of the praetorian guard, which was then promptly given to the Imperial Traditionalist, Chamon. My position (formerly Lt. Maverick) as warmaster of the imperial forces was stripped and granted to Alpha Draconis. Corporal Steel, now known as Danny Longlegs, was likewise stripped and his position, which was given to Commander X. Of course, there was also Empress Gypsy Moth, later to become Queen of Holox. Professor Web—now known as ‘Locust’—who was stripped of his position as overseer of the Scientium, and lastly, Techno Leon, who was stripped of his role in the imperial tutelage.
Zatam, forced us off Zotax in thousands of older flyers, cyber saucers, warp-wings, avengers, interstellar starfighters, flyers, and other manner of spacecraft—all with the express command not to settle anywhere within 40,000 zebs—for that was past the extend of our coms during the pre-exilic period. Fortunately, Locust and his newly minted Adapt Scientium picked up massive energy emissions from a planet just over 42,000 zebs from Zotax, the planet Holox.
Holox
Locust and Techno Leon assured us that their instruments indicated planet ‘Armeron’, as it was labelled on imperial charts, was a planet brimming with untapped energy. But upon arrival—and I use ‘arrival’ loosely, for nearly half of our fleet crash landed due to malfunctioning navigation instruments— Armeron turned out to be a barren wasteland of a planet, hence our renaming it “Holox”, or “waste” in classical Zotaxian. After despairing of the vast wasteland of a planet, Captain Wizer, abdicated his position as leader, claiming to have led his people to their demise. His insisted that the empress assume leadership in his stead in full view of the Adapticum. Empress Moth, insisted that she would have followed Techno Leon’s advice and would have likewise led the people to Armeron as well. Nonetheless, she eventually accepted the position offered to her as leader, and insisted she be referred to, not as empress any longer, but as Gypsy Moth, Queen of Zotax—the queen always had sense of mirth.
Professor Web continued to assure Queen Moth and the rest of the leadership that his findings couldn’t possibly be wrong. That there was more to the planet than had initially meet the eye. Just as our last power reserves were waning, sure enough, Professor Web discovered a portal to a new world, that is a tunnel to the interior of planet Holox through an unassuming cave system. This is the preeminent discovery which changed the entire trajectory of the Zotaxian people as a whole.
Web and Techno Leon followed up on reports of heat and neon green light emanating from a cave in a particularly bleak section of the Holoxian steppe. Upon brief exploration, Professor Web discovered the green luminescent triangular-faced eggs of the native Holoxian Bilgin Bugs. Prior to this discovery, the Adapt Scientium was under the impression that there was no life on Holox. But we were woefully mistaken.
Web and Leon found at the end of the caves a massive opening to an entire interior world. The true Holox was teaming with flora and fauna—indeed, mega-fauna, the likes of which no Zotaxian had previously laid eyes on: the Bilgin Bugs. Bilgin Bugs, as the reader will know by now, are the massive native inhabitants of the interior world of Holox. They take many diverse forms, from flying to wriggling, swimming and skimming, to flapping and slithering—but all of them, to a one, are deadly—breaking, biting, gnawing, crunching, crushing—monstrosities. They’re omnivorous beasts, which feed on the fauna of the inner planet as well as cannibalizing each other when the opportunity presents itself. As cold-blooded monsters, they regulate their energy via the warmth of the planet’s core, the internal ‘sun’ of Holox as it has been colloquially termed amongst the Adapts.
Web and Leon left that initial spelunking expedition with several Bilgin bug eggs in tow and the incredible story of the true life-source of the planet, that which had alerted Professor Web and Techno Leon on our initial voyage.
From their examination of the Bilgin bug eggs, the Adapt Scientium was able to synthesize a mimicry version of the eggs, made from the plasma portions of our wrecked ships, which were able to absorb plasmic and fusion energy at a rate previously undreamed of. The key to our energy problems was hidden in the composition of the Bilgin Bugs’ eggs, which were hidden under our very nose, even if hidden under a mile of Holoxian planet crust. We eventually called the mimicry eggs “voltstones” for their impressive ability to store and retain energy. It was through the invention of the voltstone that we Adapts were able to adapt and survive in our exile.
However, our voltstone technology alone wasn’t enough to lift us up out of our station. We needed to strategically place the stones in prime locations in order for them to collect the volts necessary for us to thrive. This meant entering the inner world and facing the Bilgin Bugs. Initially we sustained many casualties in our efforts to place the voltstones and while emperor Zatam and his Imperial Traditionalists would have been perfectly content writing off the wasted lives as “necessary sacrifice”, we of the Adapticum know that life is sacred and precious, especially for us in our diaspora with precious few and ever dwindling numbers.
So, instead of powering through and continually losing our boldest agents to the bugs, we did what we had intended all along—we adapted. Using the stored power we had already gleaned using the voltstones, we were able to forge new vehicles using the parts from the ships we were banished in. We designed our new vehicles to mimic the bugs’ appearances, hoping to fool theme long enough for us to make our voltstone drops and collect them when fully charged. We transmogrified UFO flyers, cyber saucers, warp wing-fighters, alien avengers, interstellar starfighters, and all other manner of spacecraft into space spiders, mosquitos, beta buzzers, bug blasters, space sleds, planetary prowlers, celestial stingers, and even several arachnoid star bases.
While we initially were concerned only with a passing resemblance for quick in-and-out missions, the mimicry worked so well that we were able to traverse the interior world completely unmolested by the bugs. Yes, occasionally, the bugs would attempt their normal cannibalistic behavior on one of our crafts, mistaking it for a genuine Bilgin Bug, but they were no longer targeting our craft uniquely—and with the power of the voltstones, we were able to dispatch any bug that threatened us with speed of force and violent accuracy. We completely ceased to lose Adapts to the bugs.
Professor Web further prevented the loss of Adapts by creating gigabots after the likeness of Zotaxian techdroids which we deployed in the most hazardous situations instead of deploying our own people. Countless lives were sparred by the gigabots, who unlike the techdroids, were able to generalize across various domains and were plastic enough in their programming to rapidly learn and acquire new skills.
We continued to mimic the bugs and augment our technology in their likeness, including in our communications networks. With the power of the voltstone and our Bilgin Bug inspired analogous coms projection system, we were able to boost our communications signal much further than any Zotaxian coms which came prior. This meant that we were able to potentially reestablish communications with Zotax again, despite being out-of-range—as the wicked Emperor had intended. But more than that, we were able to eavesdrop on the political goings-on of the tumultuous Zotaxian empire unbeknownst to them.
Zotaxian Upheaval
We began monitoring Zotax from our stations on Holox in order to adjudicate whether or not our return with new voltstone technology would be met with acceptance and gratitude or with hostility and further persecution. After all, we could use the power of the voltstones to feed the Grūn Limus with almost no additional effort—as we’ve since demonstrated.
Queen Gypsy Moth and Captain Wizer decided that it would be best to utilize the new two-way coms solely for information gathering for a period of six rotations, in order to gather the requisite intel needed to determine if our return would be as Icarus bringing fire back to the people (in the way of voltstone technologies) or as Zeus with a quiver full of lightning bolts.
During our period of remotely observing Zotaxian affairs, after about two rotations or so, we learned of the massive social and political turmoil that Emperor Zatam had failed to quell. He was an incompetent leader on top of his stiff-necked, genocidal mania.
After the Third rotation, Queen Gypsy Moth called a formal gathering of the entire Adapticum on Holox. It was there that she told us of Evil Emperor Zatam’s fall at the hands of Alpha Draconis, the War-master of the Imperial Forces. Draconis had publicly challenged Zatam to the Decision of the Spear, that ancient ritual of plasma spear combat as a method of divining upon whom the Omnicompetent’s favor rested as leader of the Zotaxian people. The Decision of the Spear hadn’t been chosen for thousands of rotations as a means of determining leadership, but it was still technically the law of the land—the strongest and most cunning ought to lead the people under the Grand Omnicompetent’s countenance.
Alpha Draconis made his challenge on the public channel of the vid-screens so that all of Zotax heard. This meant that emperor Zatam couldn’t snuff him out in the dark of night with his praetorian guard to evade the challenge. Though I still haven’t viewed the entire exchange, from what I’ve seen and heard, it was a one-sided bloodbath—Draconis slaughtered the tired old letch.
Upon learning of the upheaval and subsequent coronation of Emperor Alpha Draconis, our Queen decided to contact the new emperor in order to establish good will and seek a peaceful return date for the Adapticum. The queen—and her then lover, Captain Wizer—made Alpha Draconis aware of the new development in voltstone technology and even demonstrated the usefulness and ingenuity of the new Bilgin Bug inspired vehicles and space craft. Draconis was optimistic about a Zotaxian reunification until he learned of the augmentations we Adapts had been making to our own corporeal soul-modes, our ‘bodies’ to use the folk term. For I have forgot to mention that along with adapting our technology to Holoxian fauna patterns in a mode of external adaptations, the Adapticum had also adopted a policy of making internal adaptations to our own DNA, our neural structures, and even as far as incorporating Professor Web’s gigabot designs into our physical make-ups. While we had the means of saving Zotax by feeding the Grūn Limus with voltstones, and while we had successfully adapted to life amongst the monstrous Bilgin Bugs, Professor Web and Techno Leon made compelling arguments which concluded that if we were to survive future cataclysms as a species, we would eventually need to make internal changes and pursue becoming something beyond Zotaxian, something stronger, smarter, wiser, something more adaptable and plastic, something trans-Zotaxian.
It was the trans-Zotaxian revelation which Alpha Draconis baulked at and it was in that movement when he turned on us. He began parroting the same propaganda which Zatam had used on us, the same hackneyed lines about “sluffing off tradition”, “jettisoning our heritage”, and “causing an affront to the Omnicompetent and His designs”. It was during this call that Draconis coined the derogative term “Insectoids”, claiming that we had tampered with nature, obsessed over foreign bugs, and ended up becoming bugs ourselves. After breaking off contact with Gypsy Moth, Draconis began his own vicious propaganda campaign against the Adapticum.
The Adapticum continued to monitor Zotax from afar for a few more rotations but when it became apparent that public sentiments were continuing to turn against us, Queen Gypsy Moth decided we must return to Zotax immediately before the entire planet was poisoned against us and the potential for coalescence quashed. Her plan was to follow the path that Alpha Draconis’s had trodden, to challenge him to the Decision of the Spear, and to skewer him to the wall if he would not relinquish the throne.
So, we readied our new vessels for travel, we doubled our voltstone cache, charged each to its full capacity with the power of the inner sun, and left our hostile exile-turned-fortuitous-home to return to our once-familiar-home-turned-treacherous-domain.
Return to Zotax
Our return voyage to Zotax was much faster than our initial exilic one, as we were traveling in our “Insectoid” Bilgin Bug inspired craft powered by our voltstones in our return. We decided not announce our return to Emperor Draconis or the Zotaxian people, lest Draconis ramp up his propaganda campaign or pursue some other means of villainy. Instead, we warped all the way up to the outermost perimeter of the Zotaxian atmosphere and hailed Draconis on his vid-com.
Upon hailing Draconis, Queen Gypsy Moth instantly threw down her gauntlet and challenged him to the Decision of the Spear. Gypsy Moth was honorable. She was raised in the house imperial, molded by it. Though she had gained new sharp edges from her time in exile, she was still fitted with the garments of decorum. She did not wish to lower herself by challenging Draconis to the Decision on the public vid-coms as Draconis had done, but wished instead for a peaceful, decorous transition of power. She would not have killed Draconis if he’d yielded to her, she always admired his talents. This mentality was her undoing.
Alpha Draconis accepted Queen Moth’s challenge. They agreed upon the imperial sanctum as their battle ground and agreed to record all that transpired for the Zotaxians to view ex post facto. It was an honorable arrangement. But Draconis was not an honorable being. Once Queen Moth’s celestial stinger entered the atmosphere on her decent to the imperial palace, Draconis had all planetary MAZER cannons in the western hemisphere fire upon her. Her plasma shields weren’t engaged for she had an agreement with Draconis for a Decision. Her stinger was completely vaporized. No remains were ever found.
Battle for the Broadcast
They say that heroes are made by the times. I’ll not claim hero status of myself, though I did successfully wrest power from a sinister tyrant. I will say that I was born for such a time as these. Upon the Queens betrayal and murder, it fell to Captain Wizer to avenge her and our people. The Captain, however, was distraught and unable to fulfill his duties—he had not only lost his queen, but his lover as well. It was in light of these events that I took the lead, rising to the occasion. Alpha Draconis had the first laugh but he laughs best who laughs last.
Assuming control of the Adapticum’s leadership, I ordered all of our fleet to power up their voltstone powered plasma shields and to advance upon the imperial palace, minus Techno Leon and his bug blaster. Draconis focused all of his energies on defending himself and his palace and while all eyes were on our fleet, I took Techno Leon in his bug blaster with myself and my beta buzzer to the central coms station to the far south of the palace.
Leon and I managed our incursion into the coms center with relative ease as most of the guard was pulled off to the imperial palace. Techno Leon does not bear his name in vain. He was able to hack the planet-wide coms network and projected my image on every vid-screen across Zotax. It was then that I was able to publicly challenge Emperor Alpha Draconis to the Decision of the Spear in front of every Zotaxian, Adapt or otherwise.
After the message had been heard, I pulled off the attack on the palace for there was no need to continue the façade. The entire planet heard the challenge and if Alpha Draconis attempted any of his cowardly attacks on my person prior to the Decision, all would know and Alpha Draconis’s reign would cease, one way or another.
Decision of the Spear
As the old adage goes, “let another praise you, and not your own mouth; another and not your own lips.” I will not describe the Decision of the Spear between Draconis and myself. It is not for me to tell of my own victories. Therefore, I shall appropriate the recounting of another, specifically, of one Chamon, former Imperial Traditionalist, dragoon leader of the praetorian guard under Zatam, Alpha Draconis, and now myself, Emperor Maverick. Chamon has seen the error of his ways; he’s embraced metanoia and made rescission, and has pledged fealty to myself. He is a good being and has my trust, good will, and respect.
The following is an excerpt from his official recounting, originally submitted to the imperial records, and reproduced here, not in full, but the portions which appear remain word for word accurate to his full accounting:
Lt. Maverick of the Adapticum, known pejoratively as “The Insectoids” under emperor Alpha Draconis, had painted the emperor into a corner. The entirety of Zotax and of exiled brethren of Holox as well, had heard the challenge. There was nothing left to do but to see the Decision of the Spear through. I was in the emperor’s sanctorum, at his side when Maverick entered with his own Adapticum guard.
We made ready the emperor as he girded up his loins and dressed for action. It was clear that the Adapticum had refined their weapons of war and their armor. Instead of our traditional Zotaxian helmet, Lt. Maverick donned a bulbus translucent plasma helmet in its place. In the center of his chest he wore a multiform glowing object with three round protuberances, what I’ve now come to know as a ‘voltstone’.
Maverick was different from when I had last laid eyes on him. His techno-suit was more involved but there was more than that—his face, his eyes, it was as though his suit had wholly enveloped him, as if he had become one with it—as though his suit was more of an exoskeleton, an extension of his essence. In his right hand, he held a sleek metallic rod three-fourths the length of a traditional Zotaxian spear of decision.
Emperor Alpha Draconis, being fully equipped by this point, wore the traditional imperial black and gold armor with the emperor’s black helmet, signifying imperial rule and the Omnicompetent’s blessing. I handed him his spear of decision, which was his by rite and had been carved of a single piece of plasma crystal for emperor Arionious before the first illumination.
It was at this moment that emperor Draconis addressed his challenger.
“Lt. Maverick, how you’ve clawed and scratched your way up the water spout only to reach the spigot and be deluged back down into the dirt where bugs like you belong. Insectoid filth!” the emperor seethed at his challenger.
Lt. Maverick touched a button on his chest and began speaking through his suit’s external coms. “You mask yourself as a son of courage here in my presence while only a short time ago you betrayed my queen in the vilest act of treachery and cowardice this planet has ever seen. You charge us with abandoning our people’s traditions while you turn and stomp them into the ground. She was of honor through and through. You made her think you were as well and then stabbed her in the back when her guard was down.”
Emperor Draconis forced an insincere laugh and gripped his spear with both hands.
“Look at yourself, Maverick! You’re more machine than Zotaxian. What have you become?” he said with audible disgust. “You’ve sullied yourself and dishonored our Maker. You don’t belong here and after I put you down, I’ll be sure to exterminate the rest of the bugs you’ve come back with.”
Lt. Maverick pressed a purple button on his silver staff and a plasma colored spear tip ignited out of its business end. The warrior pressed the voltstone in the center of his chest and a surge of energy coursed through his entire body, illuminating his exophthalmic eyes shinning throughout the sanctorum. The blast startled every being in the room. We were partially stunned for a moment but when we regained our composure we saw Lt. Maverick Lunging towards Emperor Draconis, who had likewise been temporarily stupefied.
With a single thrust of his las-spear, Lt. Maverick had impaled the emperors first heart, the foremost in the Zotaxian circulatory system—as the reader will know. The strike was swift and true. The las-spear cut through the emperor’s outmoded armor like a hot xolton blade through scaboid.
With that one thrust, the old emperor had gone and the new incumbent stood triumphant over him.
Emperor Maverick embodied the Adapticum ethos perfectly. He had challenged Draconis according to the old ways, the true ways of the Zotaxian people. But he had also incorporated the new technology of the Adapticum into his armor and his weapon. He had successfully blended the new with the old, neither sluffing of what has come before, nor slavishly submitted himself to it. He had demonstrated his wiles and proven that he was the more cunning and powerful of the two. The spear had made its decision and coronated the Omnicompetent’s new emperor.
As Chamon witnessed with his own eyes and penned with his own metacarpus, so it was. I defeated Draconis at his own game and I rightfully rule in his place today. No longer shall the name “Insectoid” be bandied about as an insult—your ruler is an “Insectoid” and he bested your best! No longer shall we be a bifurcated people, pitted against one another, brother fighting brother. We shall reunify. We shall coalesce. This is not a plea, this is a command from your leader. We will be one. We will continue to adapt. We will continue to hold onto our sacred traditions. But I refuse to be bondslave to our ancestors and I refuse to flippantly move fence posts of the past without knowing why they’re there. Together we will traverse this new territory, intermingling the best of the past with the best of our innovators.
I am your victor. I am your decision winner. I am the Omnicompetent’s plenipotentiary. I am your emperor. We will survive. We will adapt. And we will conquer.
May it ever so be. For Zotax and all that the Zotaxian people will become.
Emperor Maverick, vice-potentate of the known universe.
