Bankashi Outcasts

A splinter group of Bankashi who have devoted themselves to studying and understanding The Bog and its inhabitants, The Bankashi outcasts favor research, exploration, and observation in favor of quarantine, destruction, and war.

Origin
After The Bankashi home world Sarokis was rendered uninhabitable, the majority of surviving Bankashi considered The Bog a blight on the universe and vowed to work towards its elimination. The Outcasts were a minority faction who felt that The Bog could not be destroyed and that a more measured and calculated approach was necessary. The Outcasts seek to contain rather than to destroy, and consider The Bog a potential resource in their continued survival as a species. Bankashi are especially suited to this task as they are largely unaffected by The Bog’s properties.

The Outcasts formed themselves out of the ranks of researchers, engineers, and scientists previously allied to the Bankashi Combine. Working in secret, they elected to abscond with as many ships and as much technology as they could, in order to outfit themselves properly for their work in the future. The Outcasts knew their mission would cause a war, however they did not want to become enemies with their own people, so great efforts were made in order to make the split seamless and peaceful

The Rift War
Bankashi Combine general Vasjuijar Viskomaq became aware of outcast operations as a result of several defectors within their ranks stepping forward with information. The General felt that the Outcasts were weak, fleeing their responsibility to the mother-planet Sarokis, and flew into a rage. As news of the deception spread among the Outcasts, it became apparent that the time to leave was at hand. roughly 1/3rd of the Bankashi Nomadic Fleet split away from the group and attempted to escape via blind Linear Translocation.

General Viskomaq, aboard the BCS Titan's Covenant, attempted to delay the Outcast's escape with dampening fields and artificial gravity wells, however despite his mastery of tactical maneuvers the Outcast fleet was formed out of some of the most intelligent individuals in Bankashi society, and they eluded the General's tricks and traps with relative ease. Finally, the general elected to respond with the only other option available to him: violence.

The General ordered the ventral canon on Titan's Covenant fired at the lead ship, the BOS A River, She Bled. The ventral cannon was a masterwork of engineering, a weapon of unparalleled destructive potential, capable of annihilating both starships and planets alike. A kinetic slug the size of a skyscraper, forged out of neutron-welded hyper-dense alloys and spun into a gravity vortex dashed through the Outcast's defenses and struck the ''A River, She Bled. ''After the blinding flash of light subsided it was clear that the remainder of the fleet had managed to flee, however the damage had been done and now the Bankashi were at war with their own.

Current Operations
Despite their setbacks, the Bankashi Outcasts remain a formidable force in the universe. Of particular interest to the Outcasts is Richard Lemming, who appears to defy every preconception about the human race on a daily basis. The Outcasts are also examining ways of closing or sanitizing The Bog without destroying the universe, and the possible origins of their own home world Sarokis from outside of reality itself.

Relationship with the Combine
Bankashi Combine authorities consider The Outcasts to be criminals and have attempted to hunt them down from the onset of their order. Ironically, The Outcast’s knowledge of The Bog has allowed most of them to elude capture or execution. Encounters between Combine and Outcast ships are not always violent clashes, but frequently heated debates and discourses based on dismantling the logic of either side's mission. The long-lived Bankashi are not bred with the same disdain for their own as some short-lived species, and remember a time when there was peace and agreement among all Bankashi, and thus outright war is not always preferable to thorough discussion.