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Characters / Homeworld

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This page is for factions and characters from space-RTS game Homeworld.

For the characters of Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, please see here.

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Homeworld

Major factions

     Kushan 
One of two playable factions in original Homeworld, the other being Taiidan. The Kushan storyline is considered canonical.
  • Doomed Hometown: Kharak in Homeworld canon.
  • Drone Deployer: One of two Kushan-exclusive unit is Drone Frigate which carries dozen of the things armed with mass driver, though you can't give commands to the drone itself. Very effective against strike craft.
  • Fighting for a Homeland: After Kharak's destruction, the original purpose of the Hiigara expedition turned into this.
  • ISO Standard Human Spaceship: Kushan ships are very thick and boxy in design (even with their strike craft!). Their default colors are gunmetal gray with white detailing.
  • Sins of Our Fathers: Their Hiigaran ancestors were just as bad as the current Taiidan until the Bentusi decided to deliver their final beatdown. The Galactic Council exiled the Hiigarans away into space shortly after, some of them landing on Kharak.
  • Stealth in Space: The Kushan have Cloaked Fighter as faction-exclusive unit in Homeworld.

     Taiidan Empire 
  • The Caligula: The Taiidan Emperor was well known for being an erratic, unstable individual even before ordering Kharak's destruction.
  • Cloning Blues: Cataclysm's manual names the Taiidan Emperor Riesstiu IV the Second and states that the rebel had to destroy his genetic material to prevent him having a successor created by cloning, implying he himself is a clone of a previous emperor.
  • Deal with the Devil: The Imperial Taiidani's alliance with the Naggarok.
  • Deflector Shield: Taiidan have the Defense Fighter and Defense Field Frigate as their faction-exclusive units in Homeworld.
  • Didn't Think This Through: The Taiidani Empire publicly broadcasted the destruction of Kharak in an attempt to dispel any notions of rebellion from its increasingly restless populace. It had the exact opposite effect.
  • Spiteful Suicide: Despite the obvious one-sidedness of their alliance with The Beast, which will inevitably result in The Beast coming for them too, the Taiidani Imperialists do not care about the consequences. They cannot accept that the larger galaxy of civilizations could exists beyond their Empire's reign. So they would rather have the entire galaxy be swallowed whole by The Beast, than be reduced as another fallen empire in the footnotes of history.
  • The Empire: At the time of the game, they were one of the most powerful civilizations in the galaxy, though they had grown corrupt and decadent with more focus on a massive military and oppressive policies to keep their citizens in line.
  • Never My Fault: Their explanation for working with The Beast in Cataclysm rings very hollow when they try and make themselves seem like the victim when everything that's happened to them since then is their own damn fault.
    Taiidan Flagship Captain: What choice do we have, Hiigaran? Your mad quest shattered our imperial sphere. You took the life of our immortal emperor. Whatever we have been driven to now is your fault.
  • The Remnant: After the liberation of Hiigara, Taiidani imperialists continued to haunt the Hiigarans and the Taiidani Republic for well over a century, even allying themselves with the Beast in an bid to regain power. They were eventually absorbed into Makaan's empire by HW2.
  • Too Dumb to Live: In order to get revenge on the Hiigarans for resulting in the empire's destruction and taking Hiigara away from them, the Taiidan remnants make an alliance with the Beast in order to get influence. The Beast cooperates with them just long enough to have its engines repaired on the Naggarok, and then betrays them.
  • Vestigial Empire: By HW1, the Taiidan Empire had become a shell of its former self as a result of rampant corruption and decadence, forced to rely on mercenaries like the Turanic Raiders just to keep the Empire together. The Kharak Genocide and subsequent rebellion pretty much spelled their death knell.

     Bentusi 
A mysterious trader race that frequently stop by and helps Kushan's fleet and Hiigara. They're in control of the First Core.
  • And I Must Scream: The fate of any Bentusi whose ship is infected by the Beast in Cataclysm, which is why they'd rather have themselves blown into a billion pieces.
  • Arms Dealer: Several times to you in Homeworld and Homeworld 2. Though instead of giving you actual ships they sell technology which gives you the ability to build them.
  • Beam Spam: All Bentusi tradeships have three pulsing Ion Cannons, which have incredible tracking abilities and are more than capable of destroying any ship, including fighters. Their Acolyte fighters also have each a pair of ion cannons, which makes them extremely dangerous as they can attack in large groups.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: In general they are peaceful, if a bit haughty, traders and will generally abstain from violence. However, push them enough and they will not hesitate to fire back at whatever poor sod that tested their luck one step too far.
  • BFG: According to the Somtaaw, the Siege Cannon is of Bentusi origin, from the time before they got rid of most of their weapons tech.
  • Break the Haughty: While initially shown as quite smug and overconfident in Cataclysm, believing themselves as invincible to whatever the galaxy can throw at them. After they had their encounter with the Beast however, they are left trying to flee the galaxy in a panic, reduced to shivering wrecks.
  • Cyborg Helmsman: Their entire race are apparently wired into their ships the way Karan is. Part of the reason they're so eager to help in the first game is that they feel sympathetic towards her as fellow Unbound.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: In all fairness, they do give you plenty of warning and firmly (but politely) ask that you stop, but if you continuously attack the Bentusi they will obliterate your entire fleet, including the Mothership (which they are aware is carrying the last of the race of Hiigara) then jump off. By the point they start firing, there's no more talking to or negotiating with them. Your fate is sealed.
  • Gold-Colored Superiority: Their ships' hyperspace drives form golden quantum wavefronts, like the Progenitors. They're also the most advanced race that's still active in the series.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: In Homeworld 2, the last Bentusi scuttled the Bentus to destroy the four Keepers of Abassid, leaving behind the First Core for the Hiigarans.
  • I Will Fight No More Forever: If you bother reading the backstory and fluff of HW2, turns out the Bentusi did this trope after they manhandled the Kushan's ancestors in a epic battle between the Harborship and the Wrath of Sajuuk and have relegated themselves to reluctant law-upholders and Arms Dealer ever since. Though as evident, their trade ships are still armed to the teeth with rapid fire ion cannons but they only ever use them for self-defense, making it a justifiable use of weaponry on their part.
  • Martial Pacifist: The Bentusi may not enjoy fighting others, but they will not hesitate to destroy the poor sod that decides attacking them is a good idea. If pushed far enough, they will even attack others who stand in their way if they threaten their survival.
    Kuun-Lan Fleet Command: Attention, Bentusi trading station! You are NOT being attacked by normal pirate vessels! Do NOT let them get close!
    Bentusi: It does not matter what they are, only the mad would attack the Unbound. Hostile ships will be... regrettably destroyed.
  • Mighty Glacier: Bentusi Trade Ships have tons of health and put out an obscene amount of firepower; however the guns are all on the same small arc and it turns like a barge. Even the enemy AI is smart enough to exploit this by distracting them with strike craft while the heavy hitters get in position.
  • Mr. Exposition: The Bentusi sure love the sound of their voice(s).
  • Obi-Wan Moment: The Bentusi have bad luck in this respect. Which brings up some Fridge Logic, since they're shown to have repeating Ion Cannons that can easily destroy most enemies.
  • Precursors: According to Word of God in The Art of Homeworld, they're either remnants of the Progenitors or a civilization that coexisted with them during their time.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Most of them evacuate the galaxy in Cataclysm to avoid being assimilated by the Beast.
  • Smug Super: In Cataclysm they are shown as being quite sure of themselves as they are both Unbound and quite powerful at that. That all changes when they encounter the Beast.
  • Space Nomads: Apparently by choice, in contrast to most examples. Being unconstrained by organic limitations like needing to eat or breathe since they turned themselves into Unbound, they have long since abandoned their home planet and live their entire lives in space.
    • The majority of their race, even more so after Cataclysm. Without the First Core, they're probably going to be wandering through extragalactic space for a long time.

     Turanic Raiders 
A minor group of raiders canonically hired by Taiidan Empire to attack Kushan's fleet.
  • Bizarre Alien Biology: According to the Cataclysm manual they breathe some kind of liquid, though given the various races' implied origins, they may simply be genetically engineered that way. Presumably their homeworld is mostly underwater.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: Which is an impressive feat considering they have no dialogue. The very first glimpse of them you get features a pair of Turanic ships drag racing and playing bumper cars with each other as they scramble to get the first kill against your forces.
  • ISO Standard Human Spaceship: Despite being one of the least humanlike races in terms of what we know about their physiology, their ships fit the trope better than any other faction, being grey, boxy, unsubtle things equipped with machine guns and/or missile pods. The one exception to this is their Ion Cannon unit, the Dagger class, which is long and thin with four spindly solar-panel arrays attached.
  • Let's Get Dangerous!: First time you meet they are pushovers who launch a few weak fighters at you from their poor man's mothership and call it a day, but the second time they show up they have broken out their ion array frigates (that have the firepower to kill your mothership), seven of which will appear near the mothership, and their carrier is actually a Battlestar with two ion cannons and a lot of hit points.
  • Meaningful Name: The name Turanic is likely based on Turan, a region in Central Asia commonly associated with raider civilisations like Turks and Mongolians. It matches both the barbarian horde look-and-feel of the Raiders and the game's overall mood that often evokes Middle Eastern and Asian influences.
  • Pelts of the Barbarian: Invoked. Several of their ships are painted to look like they're wearing tiger skins.
  • Space Pirates: Technically Space Privateers, as they've hitched their wagon to the Taiidan Empire.
  • Used Future: The Turanic Raiders are the dirtiest of the bunch, barring derelict hulks... if you don't mind the odd tiger stripe pattern paint job some of their ships have.

     Kadeshi 
The keepers of a massive nebula known as the Garden of Kadesh, encountered by the Kushan fleet along the way.
  • All for Nothing: They died trying to stop you from leaving because they were terrified of the Taiidan, but by the time the game starts, the Taiidan are a shell of their former selves.
  • Ambiguous Situation: It's not clear if the Kadeshi in the needle ships represented their entire race or not. This has led to ongoing fan debate as to whether they still exist or died to the last man. In-universe the Mothership fleet doesn't stick around to find out.
  • Cargo Cult: They worship the nebula they live in.
  • Church Militant: And any travelers who don't agree to stay and worship their nebula with them are in for a very bad time.
  • Derelict Graveyard: The Garden is littered with the wreckage of ships who tried to steal gas particles from the Kadeshi. Or were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
  • Forbidden Zone: Because the Kadeshi capture or kill everyone who enters the nebula, it has been declared off-limits by other space-faring civilizations. Even the Taiidan are scared of them.
  • Mirror Character: Kiith Naabal also endured a similar situation to the Kadeshi, being forced into hiding to survive and forcing others to Join or Die if they found their home.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Dear GOD the Kadeshi Swarmers and Advanced Swarmers. They far outmatch any strikecraft you can field in terms of sheer speed and damage, and they're so fast that some of the Kushan battle chatter while attempting to (and failing) fire upon Kadeshi swarmers is something along the lines of "Target's too fast". Luckily they've got some fuel problems, and you're eventually able to field multi-gun corvettes that are great counters to the Kadeshi in general.
  • Long-Lost Relative: Turn out to be descendants of the Hiigaran passengers of one of the Khar-Toba's sister ships. The Gaalsien remembered, but the rest of their people didn't.
  • Scary Amoral Religion: Their hostility and insularity — allowing no one to leave the Garden of Kadesh alive, either through destroying them or having them join their society — is an attempt at keeping The Empire from finding them.
  • Space Clouds: They live in an extremely dense, reddish-orange interstellar gas cloud which apparently contains enough resources to synthesize everything they need to keep a functional (if crazy) civilization going. Understandably, they don't like it when outsiders try to harvest its particles for themselves.
  • Space Nomads: To an extent. Since the Garden of Kadesh has no planets, or even fully-formed stars, the Kadeshi live their entire lives on giant, white mushroom-like motherships, endlessly circling the nebula.
  • Wacky Wayside Tribe: Apart from their connection to the Kushan, they have little plot relevance.
  • White and Red and Eerie All Over: Their ships are completely white, and they're a crazy cult of Space Nomads obsessed with keeping their existence a secret. When their ships jump to hyperspace, their quantum wavefront is crimson red, opposite to the Kushan's blue.
  • Zerg Rush: Their fighters aren't called "Swarmers" for nothing. Their fighters are small, fast, and abundant, but run out of fuel very quickly.

Kharak's Kiithid

Note: For Kiith Somtaaw, see their folder in Homeworld Cataclysm section below.

A Kiith (Kin/Family in Kharakid, the Kushan/Hiigaran language) is an extended family grouping, whose inner loyalties form the primary allegiance system on Kharak. Some of the Kiithid had their stories selected and displayed in Homeworld 1 manual due to historical importance.

     Gaalsien 
One of the most ancient Kiith. Kiith Gaalsien is a strict religious group, preaching the righteous suffering Sajuuk (The Great Maker) bestowed upon people of Kharak. Their culture puts emphasis on survival such as conserving resources or not risking the future on untested method, and arrogance was to be punished, believing that they were created to suffer from the beginning. This stems from harsh condition of Kharak's desolate desert environment. Because of this, Kiith Gaalsien remained a major political and spiritual influence on the planet for a long time. Only when people migrate to more-survivable polar region, where technological advancements (something Gaalsien was largely against) were more favorable, did Gaalsien lose its power.

The Gaalsien and the Siiddim, both the largest Kiithid in the north, once fought each other in a conflict known as the Heresy Wars, over the issue of whether the Kushan were all from another world, or only the Siidim were. Beaten by the Naabal, the Gaalsien committed even more extreme act and was branded an outlaw Kiith. Its people wandered the Great Desert, occasionally conducting raids on scientific communities.

  • Ascended Extra: Went from only being mentioned in the manual to becoming the Big Bad of the prequel.
  • Crazy Survivalist: Complete with fanatical religious overtones.
  • Red and Black and Evil All Over: Their kiith colors are dark grey and red.
  • Book Burning: Eventually get into this at one point before Guidestone discovery.
  • The Extremist Was Right: They are right about the punishment thing. It wasn't about god though.
  • Knight Templar: Justified. Initially.
  • Science Is Bad: Because they feared that Sajuuk would punish them if the Kushan tried to leave Kharak. This point of view got out of hand, however, when the Gaalsien were declared an outlaw Kiith, and even more so after Khar-Toba was rediscovered, to the point of full-on war. This didn't stop them from reverse-engineering the alien wrecks in the Great Banded Desert, which allowed to use far more advanced technology than the Coalition, like hovercraft and giant railguns.

     Paktu 
Kiith Paktu was a minor farming kiith living on the slopes above a salt sea. The Paktu along with other lesser kiithid were forced out of their homeland when the conflict between Gaalsi and Siidim came to a head and Siidim's Clean Water act has been passed. The Siidim believed that they were of divine origin and all other native Kharakians were corrupting their land. The Gaalsien were no better either, demanding brutal punishment on their enemies and forcing everyone to burn their 'sinful' books and belongings.

Caught between two sides, the leader of the kiith Majiir Paktu, gathered the misplaced people and led them into a perilous journey across Great Banded Desert looking for new land. After a long journey and many deaths, they found what they're looking for, settled and set to go back to tell the tale 2 years later. Magiir Paktu did not survive the second attempt. But 7 of his followers continued to speak of the new land. The Gaalsien and Siidim, not quite finished with their conflicts, repeatedly sent armies to subdue the southern vassal kiithid to no effect.

Kiith Paktu remained as leaders of all southern kiithid, their story a symbol of freedom, hope and faith.

  • Catchphrase: "I can smell the sea" was this to their people. The word came from Majiir Paktu who encourageed his people to not to give up during The First Migration.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: During the Heresy Wars, they left the northern hemisphere of Kharak, to avoid the fate other Kiithid suffered at the hands of the Siidim.

     Soban 
Before the intervention of Kiith Naabal, being Kiithless was equal to death sentence as allegiance cannot be easily changed. Most of the ties between kiithid back then were of dominance and submission. Kiith Soban started off when Soban the Red and fellow villagers fled across Sparkling Desert to tell their kiith-sa of savage killing of men, woman and child done by stronger neighboring kiithid, seeking vengeance. Only for no responses to be made for fear of retaliation. Members of smaller kiithids continued to join the blood of their murderers. Disappointed, Soban and his followers tore off their kiith colors from their body in shame, an act unheard of at the time. He declared that the word 'kiith' were meaningless if any kiith-sa could turn a deaf ear to the blood of children crying on the ground. The next thing they did is to return to the place of killing and razed everything — both their former land and their invaders — until nothing was left, starting Kiith Soban's bloody reputation.

From then on Kiith Soban were completely landless and existed purely as mercenaries, taking part in every single military conflict on Kharak in the name of others regardless of personal cost. But only for duration of term of service, after which Sobani men and women will put down their arms, remove their adopted kiith colors and return home no matter how far they were or how battle was going. Their contact only renewed through their respective kiith-sa. Marriage was forbidden, and those who have children are asked to leave Kiith Soban to raise them.

Even in more peaceful era of Kharak, 200 years before Guidestone discovery, Sobani intelligence staffs and security officers are still in high demand. And almost all modern-day admirals and commanders are trained at Soban-run academies. Kiith Soban represents unified discipline and solidarity, regardless of status quo.

  • Give Him a Normal Life: The Sobani consider it unethical to raise children in their martial lifestyle. If two Sobani conceive a child, either one or both parents have to resign at least until the child comes of age to look after it or else give it up for adoption.
  • Legion of Lost Souls: Their acceptance of all bears a hint of this.
  • Proud Warrior Race Guy: Unusually for this trope, Kiith Soban is a dedicated mercenary group. Moreover, they never claimed any territory as their own.
  • Red Is Heroic: Their kiith colors are red and white.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: They raged so hard they burn down their former homeland along with its oppressors. In a way, they are denouncing the concept of Kiith as a power to wield and not as a union.

     S'jet 
Kiith S'jet is one of the six kiithid that has a direct claim of descent from the first city of Khar-Toba, where their ancestors built a temple-observatory upon the Guidestone to protect it. Despite their expertise that has been courted by Kiith-Sas all across the planet, they never transform that reputation into political power. They were the first who charted Kharak's star system, discovered the 13-year sandstorm cycle around Kharak's equator and predicted where rain would fall every end of cycle among many other knowledge. Most of the record regarding the Heresy Wars were also penned by S'jet historians. Thus, Kiith S'jet was too valuable as ally to be turned into vassal. Any Kiith who killed or harmed a S'jet would be shunned by science philosophers for at least a century, in order to prevent the corruption of knowledge.

Their history was not without crisis however. During the Heresy Wars, it was discovered that the S'jet had sworn a secret secondary oath to Kiith Naabal, carrying out retrieval operations and intelligence gathering for them. This led to a hot and passionate debate over the usage of Science as a weapon that still continues to this day. While Fliir Sjet-sa realized the extremity of the situation that justified the betrayal and managed to stop the conflict from breaking out, there is still a lingering distrust between the S'jeti and the Naabali. Only in the Time of Reason, when Kiith Sjet moved on to study life and nature of Kharak itself were they able to pour their effort into a singular, shared goal. Especially society-shaking researches that lead up to Khar-Toba and the Guidestone's discovery, such as Kriil S'jet's XenoGenesis Theory, which postulated that the Kushan didn't originate in Kharak, as nearly all the planet's lifeforms were biologically unrelated to them.

  • The Assimilator: Back in Kharak, the S'jet had a system of peaceful vassalization and assimilation of other kiithid.
  • The Hero: Their current Kiith-Sa, Karan S'jet, is the protagonist of Homeworld and Homeworld 2. The protagonists of Deserts of Kharak and Homeworld 3, Rachel and Imogen, are also S'jet.
  • Light Is Good: Their colors are white and red, an inversion of Kiith Soban's.
  • The Smart Guy: Their trait.

     Naabal 
Kiith Naabal's ancestors were the engineers and technicians of the Khar-Toba, the ship that brought the exiled Hiigarans to Kharak. They made sure the ship kept running without the malfunctions that claimed several other ships of its class. The Naabali symbol was found in the Khar-Toba alongside other Kithiid's symbols, as they were one of the original Kiithid that arrived on Kharak. After Khar-Toba's abandonment, however, they disappeared from history for a few centuries.

Kiith Naabal was an almost unknown Kiith in the early history of Kharak - their name only rarely appeared in the context of tradesmen or heretics. One possible reason for this is that, for centuries, they were met with hostility by many of the other Kiithid, especially Kiith Gaalsien. Kiith Naabal is one of the most industrious kiith and is famed for its role in ending the Heresy Wars.

During the Heresy Wars, Kiith Naabal was mostly isolated. Small parties, always made up of families with direct fealty to Kiith-sa, were occasionally sent out to recover endangered texts or 'spirit away' imprisoned scholars who were deemed heretic. It was only when Ifriit Naabal-Sa realized that the war was destroying all on Kharak that they decided to intervene, ending the conflict by force using the secrets of explosives and steam-powered machines. Their soldiers, carrying repeaters rifle and supported by cannons, routed armies of marauders 20 times their size. Ifriit Naabal-Sa never forced any of his gained holdings to come under his rule, only asking for the war to end. His last act before stepping down as Kiith-Sa was to establish the Daiamid in Tiir as a place where all kiithid, powerful and weak, could gather to resolves disputes and set policy for all of Kharak.

Kiith Naabal, alongside their fellow Kiithid S'jet and Soban led the Operation Khadiim expedition that discovered Khar-Toba and subsequently the Second Core's discovery and the construction of the Mothership. They decided the quietly fade away from both the political and industrial scene, focusing on investing in various off-planet facilities. Some have noted the slightly higher ratio of Naabali cold-sleep volunteers to be loaded into Mothership.

  • The Dog Bites Back: Against Kiith Gaalsien.
  • Hidden Elf Village: After the Gaalsien and the Siidim tried to wipe them out, they fled further north and built the city of Tiir. After the war ended, Tiir became the capital of the largest government of Kharak, the Coalition of Northern Kiithid. To protect the secrecy of Tiir's location during the wars, the Naabali did the same thing as the Kadeshi, offering their discoverers to Join or Die.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Their role during the Heresy Wars.
  • Superweapon Surprise: How they ended the centuries-long Heresy Wars in only 3 years. While the Gaalsieni and the Siidimi were killing each other with swords and sticks, the Naabali had developed gunpowder, explosives, repeater firearms and steam-powered vehicles. With them, Naabali forces were able to slaughter entire armies despite being outnumbered 20 to 1.

     Manaan 
Perhaps the strangest of Kiithid. Manaan was a nomadic kiith consisted of men and women of different appearance and traditions. They were constantly wandering, stopping by watering places, expecting hospitality everywhere they go. This had made other kiithid look down on them with contempt. This reputation was made notorious when farmers near White Desert reported that the Manaanii they turned away in the morning 'came over the walls by the hundreds' by night and stole many tons of food and water, the incident made strange by the fact that the Manaanii were mostly non-hostile and almost never travelled in groups bigger than an extended family.

A key commodity the Manaanii brought to the holdings they visited in return is entertainment. The Kiith survived by their wits and their ability to amuse hold-born Kharaki. Singers and poets, magicians, dancers, actors and con men — there was nothing to the rumor that Manaani could perform dark magic, but they could certainly make your purse and your 15-years old daughter disappear.

During the beginning of Heresy Wars, Kiith Manaan suffered badly under both Gaalsien and Siiddim. Their yearly celebration at Ferin Sha, where one could have found a large festival of celebration and drinking, was attacked in 513 by a Siidim army, resulting in a massacre and the end of the tradition. In response, some of the Manaanii became pirates, killing and terrorizing the Siidim near the White Desert. A small portion of them also played a part in Kiith Paktu's Great Migration, traveling on iconic three-masted ship and returning to the North with many improvements to old technologies and several new ones.

Eventually the Manaanii laid down their weapons and turned their fleet completely to trade. The questing spirit of the Manaani is not dead even today. Kiith Manaan still controls enormous wealth, and of all the Kharakid kiithid it is the most likely to produce a diplomat or a statesman. Manaani also are common in the ranks of Scout pilots and are always eager to volunteer when it’s time to fly an experimental craft. Being the first to see anything new and different is a hunger that still burns deep in their blood.

  • Beware the Silly Ones: Back in the days of Kharak, they were just nomadic dancers and maybe thieves with strange traditions. Then the Siidim attacked their dancing grounds and butchered the Manaan present, and the rest of the Kiith raided Siidim settlements on the border of the desert for one hundred years, possibly preventing them from winning the Heresy Wars that were raging.
  • Expy: Of the Romani people; as was common in the 90s, it's a Roguish Romani stereotype, even if sympathetically portrayed.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Attack their dancing ground, and they'll make you pay for one hundred years.

Individuals

     Karan S'jet (Fleet Command) 

Voiced By: Heidi Ernest (Homeworld (Classic and Remastered), Homeworld 2 Remastered), Jennifer Dawne Graveness (Homeworld 2 Classic)

A Kushan neuroscientist who managed to solve the flaw of the communication bottleneck of the Mothership through a brain-machine interface, using herself as its subject. After Kharak's destruction, she became the S'jeti's Kiith-Sa and led the Kushan back to their original homeworld, Hiigara, to retake it from the Taiidan. After her people's return to their home, Karan was named the Sa of Sas by the Daiamid, effectively becoming the leader of her entire race.

  • Cool Ship: All four of the ships she's commanded qualify. The first was the original Mothership in which her people returned to Hiigara. The second ship, the Pride of Hiigara, was a stronger and better Mothership she designed herself. To end the Vaygr assault on Hiigara, she retrieved the Progenitor battleship Sajuuk, bearer of the Trinity and unleashed its power on their Planet Killers.
  • Gadgeteer Genius: She pretty much designed the tech that made her an Unbound by herself. She also designed the Pride of Hiigara during her people's journey back home.
  • Machine Monotone: Karan S'jet shows little emotion, which wavers between creepy or reassuring depending on the situation. Though this might not be so much because she's rigged up as a machine, but because she's in charge of a Generation Ship carrying over half a million lives and has to remain calm and disciplined under stress.
  • Older Than They Look: By the time of Homeworld 2, she's over a century old but hasn't aged one bit. It's implied connecting herself to the Second Core stopped her aging.
  • Princess Protagonist: Unmentioned ingame, but the lore mentions her father Huur was Kiith-Sa of Kiith S'jet, and she was the first in line of succession. After the Taiidan burned Kharak to the ground, she succeeded him as such.
  • Spaceship Girl: She became one with the Mothership when she became an Unbound.
  • Wetware CPU: She's the current page image. This was her solution to the communication bottleneck of the original Mothership, and she refused to let the technology be used on anyone else but her. She also returns to perform this role for the Pride of Hiigara in HW2.

     Fleet Intelligence 
A group of officers commanding various efforts on the Mothership.

Homeworld Cataclysm

     Kiith Somtaaw 
A small mining kiith. Their efforts to remain competitive with other kiithid on new Hiigara leads them to investigate an unknown distress beacon with disastrous consequence...
  • Badass Boast: The Fleet Command drops a small one that can be easily missed yet still very powerful. When they make their way to finally face the Naggarok head on, they refer to their former mining vessel as a Warship and they have earned every right to call it that.
  • Beam Spam:
    • The Dervish Multi-beam Frigate has five anti-fighter Ion Cannons in each side of the ship. At the end of the game, they obtain the original Bentusi Acolyte designs, which they use against the Naggarok.
    • In the same vein, their Multi-beam Frigates pack five smaller ion cannons into a single vessel.
  • Blue Is Heroic: Their kiith colors are blue and white. Their shade of blue is deeper than the one used by the Hiigaran Navy.
  • Cool Ship: They start of as a rather simple mining barge, but throughout the campaign against the cataclysmic threat of the Beast, they turn into a warship.
  • Death Seeker: The Mimic's pilots are made up of cryogenically frozen colonists who found out that they are the last remaining members of their families thanks to the Taiidan's attack on Kharak. Finding out that they have no living relatives left has driven them into suicidal fanaticism.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Yes. After all, they have to clean up their own mess.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare:
    • They were a humble mining clan before the events of Cataclysm. Before that, they were a religious Kiith, like the Gaalsien and the Siidim. In fact, they were on the verge of being absorbed by a much larger clan and overall aren't really respected. You can see it in the way other factions treat them.
    • Embodied by the evolution the Kuun-Lan undergoes over the campaign, from a glorified refinery with engines to a world-class warship which is arguably superior to the Mothership itself.
  • Fusion Dance: The Kiith Somtaww were given the authorization to have ship combination technology, allow two similar but small craft to combine to form a larger powerful version of itself but with a tradeoff.
  • Holographic Disguise: The Mimic strike craft have holographic projection systems that allow them to assume the disguise of either being an enemy spacecraft or a small asteroid. These holographic disguise capabilities are made stronger when they combine with a similar Mimic strike craft.
  • Macross Missile Massacre: Missile launchers figure much more prominently into Somtaaw ship design than other Kiith, from single shot tubes on Acolyte fighters to the six repeating racks in the bow of an Archangel dreadnought.
  • Meaningful Name: The three Somtaaw ships built by the Mothership were named after temples of the Shimmering Path of the Lungma Jiin, one of the tallest mountains of Kharak. The Kuun-Lan, your main ship in Cataclysm, means “Purifying Flame”. Her sister ships are Clee-San, or "Truth Seeker" and Fal-Corum, or "Silent Wayfarer". Their names are in Kharakid, the language of the Kushan/Hiigarans.
  • Ramming Always Works: Ramming Frigates, originally used for pushing asteroids out of the way. Having said that, the point of the Ramming Frigate is to push its target out of battle; any damage done by the collision is almost incidental.
  • The Stoic: As in the previous game, Fleet Command normally keeps a cool head under almost all circumstances, until...
    • Not So Stoic: He outright loses it in Mission 15 against the Bentusi. It's very understandable when you take into the account everything that has happened leading up to itnote .
      Fleet Command: You are killing us. You and your precious stories. Who will remember the crew of that ship? Or are flicker-lives not worth remembering?!
      Bentusi: You seek to trap us in a diseased galaxy. This cannot be. Desist and we will allow you to leave. We... regret the loss of your memories.
      Fleet Command: REGRET?! We regret the loss of the whole sand-cursed galaxy! Stop murdering us and help us kill the Beast!
      *beat*
      Fleet Intelligence: They've stopped firing. Keep it up, you're getting through to them.
      Bentusi: The Devourer cannot be stopped. We must flee or even memory will die. We will not be Bound-
      Fleet Command: Yes, yes... We will not be Bound, whatever that means. Well, guess what: we won't let you go! It doesn't matter how we die, one ancient monster is as good as another!
      Bentusi: We are NOT monsters.
      Fleet Command: Aren't you? Look around! Look around what you've done to our fleet! All because we dared to get in your way. Look at yourselves, the Aloof and Mighty Bentusi! Slaughtering the people who asked for your help! YOU ARE WORSE THAN THE BEAST!! AT LEAST THE BEAST DOESN'T PRETEND TO BE RIGHTEOUS!!
      Bentusi: We fear... For the first time in countless orbits... we fear.
      Fleet Command: Join the Kiith. We're not blind, just scared. As scared as you. Now, are you gonna help us? Or are we gonna have to ram this mining ship down the throat the first station that approaches?
      Bentusi: That will not be necessary. We see our own madness reflected in yours. We will do what we can to help.
  • Suicide Attack: Their unique strike craft the Mimic's only form of attack is kamikaze-ing themselves onto enemy aircraft, this mainly stems from their pilots being Death Seekers

     Taiidan Republic 
One of the successor states of the Taiidan Empire, and allies to the Hiigarans. The Kuun-Lan and its fleet encounter them on some missions to help them against the Beast.
  • Heel–Face Turn: They have taken the side of their former enemies.
  • Light Is Good: Their ships have a white and teal color scheme.
  • Redeeming Replacement: They seek to become this to the old Empire. Unfortunately, the Imperialists and the Beast aren't making that job easy.
  • Super Prototype: They built the Nomad Moon, a powerful experimental defense station that has several anti-strikecraft Ion Cannons that can fire continuously. It also has a powerful repulsor field that can even deflect Siege Cannon shots. Unfortunately, the Naggarok infects the Nomad Moon for their own uses.

     The Beast 
A parasitic organism that unleashes itself upon the galaxy in Cataclysm.
  • Big "NO!": When the Naggarok is destroyed, the Beast howls a massive one that lasts for 30 seconds. It's also mixed with several Little Nos and degenerates into a cacophony of screams.
  • Brown Note: The Naggarok's Beast infection acts as one to the Bentusi, twisting their thoughts just by being close to it.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: The Beast Mothership formed out of the Kuun-Laan's ejected research module.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Advanced enough to convert the entire lower half of a mining vessel into an entire mothership and gains it's intelligence by devouring both souls and technology.
  • Fate Worse than Death: If a ship with an Unbound is infected by the Beast, their mind will survive, but they'll be trapped within the mass of circuitry and flesh that used to be their ship, unable to control anything. The Bentusi are so terrified of it that a large chunk of their race fled from the galaxy and when a Bentusi ship was struck by an Infection Beam, its pilot decided he'd rather die than be trapped in such a fate and self-destructed his ship.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: The Beast's main gameplay mechanic is to do this to the enemy.
  • Hungry Menace: It's a monstrous, all-devouring, cancerous monster seeking all life to sustain its never ending hunger, while also having the brains to trick the remnants of a fallen empire to side with it.
  • Hyperspace Is a Scary Place: Supposedly, the Naggarok simply encountered the Beast at random when traveling through hyperspace. No other info is given as to its origins. This also raises the question of what else could be encountered there.
  • Keystone Army: The Naggarok, in the words of the Bentusi, acts as the heart and mind of the Beast. When it's destroyed, the Beast's forces degenerate into mindless animals once more.
  • Knight of Cerebus: The moment this thing shows up, the plot takes a hard right turn into Cosmic Horror Story.
  • It Can Think: Quickly proves itself to be intelligent, using the knowledge absorbed from its victims, to the point of communicating with other vessels. The original found on the Naggarok does one better by deceiving the Imperialist Taiidani to do repairs on the ship and help them in their conquest of the stars.
  • Meat Moss: Ships infected by the Beast are visibly covered in random parts of their hulls. It's all made from the ship's materials and the crew's living tissue. All of that is used to make a connection and interact with the assimilated ship's functional abilities.
  • Organic Technology: The Beast converts its victims into this.
  • Reactionless Drive: The Naggarok possesses an inertialess drive powered by its hyperspace core. It allows it to move as fast as a fighter and makes it nearly impossible to stop. The only time it stops is when it uses its Phase Disassembler Array on a Somtaaw capital ship. The Somtaaw's EMP pulses can also immobilize it.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: In their final moments, the Naggarok's crew destroyed their ship's engines to keep the Beast from devouring the galaxy they arrived in. Unfortunately, the Beast managed to infest one of the ship's distress beacons, which reached the Hiigara System a million years later.
  • Time Abyss: The Beast infestation in the Naggarok is one million years old. It's so ancient it predates the Bentusi and the Progenitors.
  • The Virus: A sentient bio-mechanical Grey Goo-like organism capable of consuming and converting both people and technology into extensions of itself. According to in-game lore, it is apparently an extra-galactic creature that exists in hyperspace and infected the Naggarok as it passed through a patch of it at random.
  • We Can Rule Together: The Naggarok makes this offer to the Taiidan Imperial Remnant. They accept. They later try to do the same to Kiith Somtaaw near the end of the game. Of course, they refuse, especially as they know the Beast won't comply with its part of the deal and just wants to eat everything.
    Naggarok: So the miners are now warriors? You have come far, little Kiith Somtaaw. You can still join us and be rewarded, as the Imperialists will be. We can make your kiith supreme upon Hiigara. Is this not what you wanted, when you awakened my children?
    Kuun-Lan Fleet Command: Not this way! We make no bargains with you. Not now, not ever, Monster. We may not be a true warrior kiith, but we were good enough to burn your first two children to ashes.
    Naggarok: Our children are not ourselves. We have been, and always will be. With this vessel around us fully functional, we will never be contained again.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: But doesn't really bother to keep up the presence and the moment the Taiidan voice any discontent, it turns on them. When the Taiidan call them out on this, the Beast drops all pretenses and simply tells them they're food to it, just like all other living things.
    Taiidan Flagship Captain: This is Imperial Flagship Vengeance to all ships: Break off attack and fall back to rendevous point.
    Naggarok: Wait! What are you doing, ally? Continue to attack and destroy the Hiigarans!
    Taiidan Flagship Captain:You lied to us, creature. First about giving us the Nomad Moon and then about the Bentusi being neutralized. The Taiidani... are no one's fools.
    Naggarok: You are what all life is to us: FOOOOD!!
  • You No Take Candle: Most Beast ships that try to talk speak this way, though how they can send a voiced radio transmission startled Kuun-Lan bridge officers at first; justified by the fact that it assembles its lines from the ship's log recordings and victim memories. The Naggarok however can speak perfectly albeit in a very weird voice. To be fair to them, they have been around a while.
  • Voice of the Legion: It uses the voices and memories of its victims to increase its intelligence. Once it can speak, the Beast does so with a female, a male, and a chittering chorus of voices talking in semi-harmony. The Naggarok does one utilizing this trope with perfect cogitation. In-game, they speak with the same voices as the Kuun-Lan's Fleet Command and Fleet Intelligence.

Individuals

Homeworld 2

     Hiigarans 
115 years after returning to Hiigara, the reborn Hiigaran people took up arms once again when the Vaygr invaded them, led by the Sa of Sas, Karan S'jet.
  • Blue Is Heroic: Hiigaran Navy ships are pale blue and white.
  • Jack-of-All-Trades: Most of their ships can fulfill multiple roles, but the Vaygr's more specialized ships can perform better in the right roles.

     Vaygr 
An army of pirates attacking and conquering planets in the galaxy. They're in possession of Third Core, and they are making their way to Hiigara looking for the Second.

     The Progenitors 
  • Attack Drones: Their space structures are guarded by drones of all types. The Movers are maintenance drones that make repairs and keep constructs and other ships functional, the Drones are corvette-sized and very maneuverable fighters that will slaughter most Hiigaran strikecraft, and finally there's the Keepers, which are destroyer-sized drone carriers that are nearly indestructible.
  • Cargo Cult: Sajuuk, the god worshiped by the Hiigarans turned out to be the Progenitor that invented Hyperspace technology, who had a powerful battleship named after him. That same battleship is powered by its namesake's greatest work, the Three Cores that allowed the Progenitors to unlock the mysteries of Hyperspace.
  • Energy Weapons: All Progenitor guns seem to be this. They have Ion Cannons that never need a cooldown period, their strikecraft (The Movers and the Drones) are armed with Plasma Cannons, and then there's the Progenitor Dreadnaught, which is built around a massive Wave-Motion Gun known as a Phased Cannon Array.
  • Gold-Colored Superiority: Their quantum wavefronts are golden, unlike the Hiigarans' blue and the Vaygr's green. They're also the most advanced civilization known in the series.
  • Hopeless Boss Fight: The Keepers are impossible to defeat with conventional weaponry. The moment they suffer critical damage, they activate their shields and jump to hyperspace to regenerate. The Karos Keeper is only stopped by luring it into the Power Modules (which overload it so much it explodes), while the Keepers of Abassid are completely unstoppable and it takes Bentus' Heroic Sacrifice to destroy them.
  • Nanomachines: Sajuuk's point defense pulsar-like beams are known as "Nanite Beams".
  • No Warping Zone: The Karos Keeper has a hyperspace inhibitor that keeps the Hiigaran fleet from fleeing until it's trapped with the Power Modules.
  • Portal Network: They built highly advanced Hyperspace Gates to connect their empire. The Hiigarans reactivated it with the Trinity at the end of the second game and are busy exploring their Great Network. The network lives up to its name, extending throughout several galaxies.
  • Precursors: The creators of Hyperspace technology. May or may not be humans from Earth. According to Bentus, Sajuuk was one of them.
  • Wave-Motion Gun: The Phased Cannon Arrays. Mounted on their Dreadnought/Gatekeeper and Sajuuk.

Individuals

     Makaan 
Leader of the Vaygr. He looks to reunite the Three Cores to take the Sajuuk for himself.
  • Big Bad: Of Homeworld 2.
  • The Chosen One: Believes himself to be this, and his adoption of the title Sajuuk-Khar ("Sajuuk's First") reflects that.
  • Dark Messiah: Is believed by himself and his followers to be the Sajuuk-Khar.
  • Evil Sounds Deep
  • Galactic Conqueror: Makaan is the supreme overlord of the Vaygr, having crushed all his rival lords using the Third Core and taken control of their fleets. He considers the other two Cores of the Trinity, held by the Hiigarans and the Bentusi, to be his by divine right to allow him to possess the power of Sajuuk-Khar and conquer the galaxy.
  • Spaceship Boy: He lives suspended in a liquid tank on his Flagship, with Brain/Computer Interface wires and life-support apparatus implanted in his head that allow him to control the Flagship as an extension of his own body.
  • Wetware CPU: Like Karan S'jet, Makaan is an Unbound cybernetically wired-in to his Flagship so he can coordinate the massive numbers of vessels in his fleet.

    Captain Soban 
A Hiigaran specops commander infiltrating the Vaygr.
  • Badass in Distress: One mission has you attacking the Vaygr outpost Thaddis Sabah to rescue him.
  • The Cavalry: Early in the game, Captain Soban's fleet arrives to assist the Pride of Hiigara while it is still operating with a skeleton crew and limited resources.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: His defense fleet has black ships, but they're just as heroic as other Hiigarans.
  • Last-Name Basis: His first name is never revealed.

Homeworld 3

Individuals:

    Imogen S'jet 
Descendant of Karan S'jet and protagonist of the third game.
  • Cool Ship: The Khar-Kushan, a new Mothership that shares its predecessors' banana shape and seemingly has the Trinity installed in it.

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