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Nightmare Fuel / Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak

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Even before they took to the stars and encountered all sorts of interstellar monstrosities, the Kushan suffered quite a few terrifying things on their desert world already.


  • Kharak is dying. With every year, its desert grows and consumes more of what could barely be called habitable land, pushing more and more of its citizens to the polar regions just to survive. The expedition to find the "Primary Anomaly" is a last ditch effort to escape total extinction at the hands of a planet that's out to get them. What's worse is the Big Bad of the game are a bunch of fanatics who believe they should all let nature run its course, even if it means they all die.
    • Although the Daiamid was able to cover it up, Kharak's satellite network confirmed that the planet would become completely uninhabitable to the Kushan in only 350 years, when the last sources of water and arable ground in the poles dried up. Even if the Taiidan hadn't burned the world to the ground, Kharak's days as a habitable planet were numbered.
    • The fate of J'raal Hraal was this to Rachel, as he knew the truth, tried to reveal it, and the Diamid ruined him for his actions. He found out through his research that the Daiamid was covering up the fact Kharak was dying, and when he tried to expose his own research on the planet's state, his Kiith expelled him and Kiith Naabal accused him of being a Gaalsien sympathizer. The last records of him were from ten years before Operation Khadiim, when he and his now Kiithless immediate family moved to a religious retreat in the desert, most likely joining the Gaalsien.
  • During a mission in a derelict graveyard, the fleet come across some excavated starships that are perfectly intact with no sign of damage from any form of crash landing. After uncovering more data along the the way, they realize the ships never crashed, they hyperspaced into the planet due to interference from some sort of power source coming from the "Primary Anomaly". In other words, the Second Core held within Khar-Toba caused passing ships to malfunction and be dragged out of hyperspace. What ships didn't simply crash ended up underground. There are no explicit mentions of the crew inside, and it's probably for the best left that way. Though Rachel does helpfully point out that they were buried alive with no way to escape and would eventually run out of supplies.
    • We're shown the sheer extent of the Second Core's power, as the starmap shows the interference bubble it created had SEVERAL LIGHT YEARS in diameter, and it forcefully dragged over thirty fleets of countless races to Kharak.
    • Why the core functions that in the first place is never answered. Unfortunate side-effects of its usage as power sources? Survival tactic on the barren planet? Or an act of spite from the ancient Hiigaran? There is no one alive to tell the whole story anymore.
  • The Taiidan deployed a Kill Sat in Kharak's orbit, in case anyone tries to reclaim and use the Second Core again. They were either being careful or they hate the Hiigarans that much.
    • What happened to the Taiidan, the Taiidani carrier that deployed the Kill Sat was horrifying as well. Its engines shut down and it fell all the way down to Kharak's surface, most likely creating the Torin Crater when it crashed and exploded.
  • The backstory of the Khaaneph shows that they aren't just Gaalsiens with a different paint job. Their name means "Godless", for them there is no god, no law, no justice, no Kiith. They live to raid other Kiiths, massacaring settlements, taking everything useful, every scrap of metal, shred of cloth, even corpses.

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