The Imperium was the name assumed by the collective mind of one faction of the Killiks during the Second Swarm War. It became the third known "Nest of Nests" in galactic history, following the Colony during the First Swarm War and the Vagaari hives on the other side of the Second, and eventually grew to dominate the Utegetu Nebula.
History[]
The Vagaari hives were already busy conquering other Killiks by 154 ABY, when a force from the Golden Empire led by Vuul Centurion Eskol Kaartinen arrived in the Utegetu Nebula at Berassam and came to the aid of the beleaguered Alaala. After Kaartinen's force of Massassi repelled an attempted invasion by the Mollom and other Vagaari-allied nests, Kaartinen and the Alaala sent representatives to the remaining free Killik nests to forge an alliance. Anxious to avoid being absorbed into the hostile, alien-influenced Nest of Nests, nearly all the free Killiks answered Kaartinen's call.
The Massassi, Killiks, Royal Navy personnel, and Centurions fought side-by-side in a number of battles throughout the Utegetu, making Joining inevitable. The Massassi were the first to be absorbed, followed by the Centurion Chindal, and then Kaartinen himself. As a Joiner, Kaartinen spread Killiks throughout his small task force of ships, bringing the rest of his troops into the hive mind. Only the Qua Centurion Te`net Organi was immune; his Qua physiology led his body to heal his brain to its normal state faster than Killik pheromones could modify it.
Though the Royal forces were absorbed into different hives, their relatively high numbers and the presence of two powerful Force users in the mix worked on the Killiks as well, and the various nests began to converge into a single hive mind. While the Massassi, spacemen, and Centurions absorbed the groupthink and muddled species memory of the Killiks, the Killiks themselves acquired the Centurions' focus on service and protecting others and the Massassi's religious reverence for Rin Sakaros and ruthless battle fervor. Chindal's presence in the hive mind helped knit disparate minds into a cohesive whole, but it was Kaartinen who emerged as the leading mind in the nest. It was he who first referred to the new Nest of Nests as the Imperium.
The Imperium had also absorbed the Empire's hatred of slavers, and the end of the Second Swarm War saw numerous brutal attacks against the Vagaari hives. Unable to grow their numbers on the Utegetu worlds due to the presence of the Fizz, the Imperium expanded outside the Nebula instead, capturing several worlds nearby to allow breeding grounds and production yards. Kaartinen also began to plan a future for the Imperium beyond the war, intending to extend into the known galaxy and conquer its worlds to present them to Rin. Te`net managed to dissuade him until the Vagaari hives were defeated, but after the Battle of Roq, the Imperium began to prepare for war in earnest.
In the end, the Imperium was destroyed on the eve of its war against the galaxy. Te`net fought a duel against his brother Centurions, maiming Chindal and killing Kaartinen. As chaos spread through the Imperium fleet with both their minds removed from the hive mind, Te`net used Kaartinen's code cylinder to reprogram the fleet's threat analysis computers, causing them to mistakenly fire on one another as perceived threats. While the confused Killiks slaughtered one another, Te`net sabotaged the Imperium's flagship, the Unseen Queen; its reactor exploded in the midst of the Killik bloodbath. With the majority of the nest warriors—including the surviving Massassi and spacemen—killed in the massacre, and Chindal removed to the Empire, the hive mind fell apart and the Nest of Nests dissolved.