The Astrixids

Long before history could record their existence, the Astrixids spread like shadows across the stars. They are not conquerors in the way empires rise and fall, nor invaders seeking territory or riches. They are something far worse—an insatiable, creeping hunger that does not merely consume, but becomes.

Born alongside the first stirrings of life in the cosmos, the Astrixids were never a single species, but a force—a parasitic intelligence that latches onto civilizations, burrows into their cultures, and wears their bodies as its own. They do not conquer by war, but by assimilation. A planet does not fall in battle against the Astrixids; it simply ceases to be itself. Its people, its leaders, its armies—all are absorbed and then evolved, their offspring twisted into something unreckognizable and predatory.

In the darkest records of history, there are whispers of golden ages that ended overnight, of kings and heroes whose names were erased because they had become Astrixid. Entire empires have vanished without a trace, not because they were destroyed, but because they were never separate from the Astrixids to begin with.

To fight them is to fight your own—the friend who speaks with a voice that is no longer theirs, the leader who issues orders that sound just a little too perfect, the child who stares at you with eyes that know too much. The Astrixids do not fear time or attrition. They will wait. They will listen. And when the moment is right, they will consume.

Because to them, there is no “us” and “them.” There is only the inevitable truth: all things belong to the Astrixids.