The Nihilgenia are the private soldiers of the Keibatsu bloodline.
The Birth of the Neverborn
- "If the Nihiligenia had a voice, or rather the tenacity to use it, they would have screamed, 'I didn't want to be born a murderer'."
- ―Shin'ichi pondering the psychology of clones.
Muz Keibatsu Sadow and his loyal brother, Shin'ichi Endymiron Keibatsu had tracked down one of the reserve prime clone samples while on a mission issued by the Grand Master of the Brotherhood. Having successfully completed the mission, and with an eye for the future needs of their family, the pair made for Kamino, spending a considerable amount of their own personal wealth to order soldiers from the cloners. Macron also added to the collective effort later, using his knowledge of cloning techniques and alchemy to further enhance the fearsome soldiers.
Helmet of the NihilgeniaWith armor designed for both utilitarian and psychological aspects, the helms were made more like the native warrior caste of their homeworld. Trained extensively in hand to hand arts as well as modern warfare, the dark-armoured soldiers accompanied the bloodline as soon as the first batches were done. Taught the language of the backwater planet and given a rudimentary understanding of their rich history, they were ready for deployment.
Named the 'Nihilgenia', or the 'neverborn', a nod to their status as vat-grown people, Shin'ichi made it a personal mission to bond the soldiers to the Keibatsu cause. Each Nihilgenia is guaranteed a grant of land and a stipend of credits at the end of a ten year service contract, despite having been 'purchased' from the cloners. In addition, Nihilgenia are given names instead of serial codes after their first deployment, choosing a first name, with their family name being the place where they first served. This policy has helped solidify their loyalty to the Keibatsu, as well as encouraged many native Kyatarans to enlist and join their ranks.
Campaigns
The Reclamation of Kyataru
Armor of the Nihilgenia As the Keibatsu stormed the strongholds of the Nagahide interlopers, the troops gained a ferocious reputation, almost as mythologically charged as their Keibatsu generals, who were often whispered of as demons.
As more and more soldiers were conscripted into their ranks from the local populace, a decision that made the clones feel more and more Human, ingratiated into the society with their brothers in arms. With such morale, and additional reinforcements arriving with Ashia Kagan Keibatsu, the Keibatsu made short work of the Nagahide forces, many men surrendering upon first sight of their ranks. It was not uncommon that opposing soldiers would beg to join the Nihilgenia, who were better equipped and fed than the rival warlord's men.
Following a black-ops mission which brought the Keibatsu into the belly of Amahara Castle, the Warlord was defeated, and his generals quickly resigned their commissions and pledged themselves to the Keibatsu. Fortifying the castle with a legion of the Nihilgenia, the bloodline was called back to business elsewhere, the Warlord Kazahide acting on their behalf as his family had served the Keibatsu in the past.
Blades of the Fallen
When the entire tenth legion was discovered decimated outside Amahara Castle, Kazahide sent an urgent dispatch to Muz, who quickly assembled the Keibatsu and rallied them to Kyataru. Once there, the family found much more than they had anticipated. The legion had been slaughtered by Suukou Bodai, apparently led by saber-wielding generals.
After several forays into intelligence gathering, Shin'ichi turned up missing, haven given chase to Anaxela, whom he and his student had found in the undercellars of Amahara Castle.
Leads led the bloodline to the southern islands, where they discovered a Suukou Bodai stronghold, with Eojin Quon-Shen and an assembled team of Jedi who had reason to despise the Keibatsu, among them Claudius Tang'va, one of the Jedi responsible not only for the raid on Koji's castle, but also for the death of Raven's parents. In a fevered skirmish, the Keibatsu and a legion of Nihilgenia stormed upon a rally. Raven was captured by the Jedi, Shin'ichi was grievously injured by Eojin, and enough Nihilgenia were killed that the Keibatsu had to retreat to Amahara.
This first loss for the Keibatsu and the Nihilgenia emboldened their enemies, which led to several skirmishes outside of Inazawa, before the Suukou Bodai losses forced them to go to ground, and for Eojin and his allies to seek another path. This resounding defeat of the Bodai on several occasions helped to renew morale and public confidence in the Nihilgenia and the Keibatsu.
Engagements with the Brotherhood
As the members of the Keibatsu became more and more embroiled in the affairs of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood, members of the Nihilgenia were often used as private security details due to the Keibatsu questioning the loyalty of the typical brotherhood armed forces. As such, it was not rare to see squads of Nihilgenia working in tandem with the Armed Forces of the Iron Throne or even the The Nephilim. With the withdrawal of the Keibatsu from command in the Brotherhood, these soldiers remained in the service of the Keibatsu rather than stay with the units they were attached to. As the Keibatsu retired to Kyataru and their home clan of Naga Sadow, the Nihilgenia are sometimes used to further the Family's interests in Clan space and campaigns.
Notable Members of the Nihilgenia
- Raikou Amahara - Assigned to guard Amahara Castle shortly after the Reclamation, many of Raikou's brothers fell from an attack by the Suokou Bodai as led by Eojin Quon-Shen. His bravery in that battle and subsequent assignment to Muz Ashen's legion gave him plenty of opportunity to prove his heroism, ultimately culminating in his near-death sacrifice, surviving only due to a battlefield blood transfusion by Muz. For his actions, Raikou was adopted officially by the family, afforded lands and title, eventually taking the name Kojiro Keibatsu. Kojiro is a hero among the Nihilgenia, and his example helps reinforce the respect that the Keibatsu have for their men, and the loyalty that they have for their lords.
- Taka "Doc" Kuroshin - A first generation clone, Taka earned his name and Jaig Eyes at the Battle of Kuroshin, being delivered to the battlefield during the Reclamation of Kyataru. The brutal fighting that took the Keibatsu from the ruins of Kuroshin to the capital at Amahara, the field medic was offered an early retirement for valorous service. Opting instead to extend his contract, Doc was retrained as a fighter pilot and assigned to the 9th, serving alongside Muz directly.
- Kyohei Katsuhide - Tactically brilliant, the field medic Kyohei's service under Shikyo Keibatsu saw him rapidly becoming indispensible to the Brotherhood elder, serving as his personal doctor, majordomo and right hand.
- Davo Inazawa - A third generation clone, this Grenadier found himself the only survivor of his squadron during an ambush off-world while serving beneath Sanjuro Sledge Keibatsu. Sanjuro's abduction by the invaders nearly drove the man mad, throwing himself into harm's way until the Keibatsu rescued him. Swearing himself to protect Sanjuro, this Nihilgenia's loyalty and explosive fury in battle has earned him a reputation with his peers.
Divisions of the Nihilgenia
The Nihilgenia are broken down into 13 legions, each Keibatsu ostensibly leading a Legion during times of battle.
Equipment of the Nihilgenia
Organized in typical imperial format, the average legion of Nihilgenia includes several specialties, from general line soldiers to scouts, heavy weapons, and assault. While every soldier is issued a DC-15 Blaster rifle, a Westar 35 sidearm and a combat knife, additional equipment (or substitutions) are made based on training and role. Additional weaponry includes a variety of grenades, rocket launchers, crew-served E-Web blasters, heavy repeating blasters and sniper rifles.
In addition to weaponry,every Nihilgenia Soldier comes equipped with the iconic armor of their unit. Designed as a mingling of traditional Kyataran style and modern technological advancements, the armor of the Nihilgenia is readily identifiable. With prototypes made by Kamino Armory, production of the later generations of the armor were manufactured on Kyataru. Having seen the devastating results that inferior armor visited upon Imperial Forces in the Galactic Civil War, and in decades of conflict within the Brotherhood, The Keibatsu spent the necessary credits to build an armor kit worthy of their armies. With higher resistance to blaster and projectile fire, the plates of the Nihilgenia armor are somewhat heavier than traditional clone armor. Standard forces are all painted with a black color scheme, with accents in either royal purple, dark blue, deep red, or forest green depending on which legion and rank they belonged to. Scout armor is painted in a digital breakup pattern, based on field of operations. Commanders are equipped with a pauldron to signify station. In addition, Special Forces would be outfitted with a fire-retardant kama and occasionally a streamlined mandolorian jetpack.
All soldiers are issued a utility belt and pack, which include a maintenance kit for their weapon, food pellet dispensers, water purification tablets and a collapsible canteen, cordage, ascension grapple, personal torch, electrobinoculars, secured commlink and extra magazines. Longer-term deployment kits include ration bars, collapsible shelters, a larger tool kit, firestarter, sleeping rolls and other necessary items.
All Nihilgenia are also issued a ComTech Tactical Helmet Mark V. The reinforced helmet contains advanced breathing filters (which act as protection against chemical and biological attacks, as well as toxins) and a comlink for instant communication with other units. The commlink uses linked encoding sequences to rotate frequencies every few seconds while keeping all soldiers in the unit synchronized. If a soldier’s helmet is removed without the soldier first hitting the comlink's control stud (found on the under-rim of the helmet), the frequency coding routine is automatically deleted from that helmet. The automatic polarizing lenses protect the trooper against intense glare and provide them with enhanced combat vision or holographic vision processors which allow vision through many barriers such as smoke, darkness and fire. The Multi-Frequency Targeting and Acquisition System (MFTAS) helps with the soldiers' perception in darkness as well as smoke and other visibility obscuring conditions. The helmet also assists in aiming at moving targets. The Comtech Series V helmet speaker uses a seven-phase sonic filtering for clear sound (for soldiers, it is connected to the audio pickup). It also has a vocoder for talking to non-troopers. Pilots and Scouts have the same helmet, but with additional data readouts sent to the head's-up display and slightly modified external design.