Of the 13 major races of the Red Ocean, the Arche occupied a rather unusual position in this fairly exclusive club. Their population was not as high as that of the orvens or the nunsers, but their individual strength did not even get close to a powerful species like the phase whales. Nonetheless, the arche managed to overcome their initial pressures and produced a civilization that might not be as prominent as many other major races, but enabled them to stay on top of other minor races! The arche was a typical race that emphasized quality over quantity. This went right back to their biologies. Due to convergent evolution, they shared a decent resemblance to the turtles of Old Earth. Each member of the arche race grew thick and resilient turtle shells that accompanied them throughout their entire lives. What made the arche different from the turtles that humans were familiar with was that the arche had evolved to incorporate a large variety of exotic materials in their shells! The arche could absorb a wide variety of strong and special materials and grow them into their shells in a way that preserved these properties! This was the most exceptional part about their biologies. Their tolerance for materials that many other species considered toxic was quite generous. The shells they grew and expanded over their lifetimes also functioned as effective bioarmor. Phasewater was no exception! Although their tolerance for phasewater was not high, as long as they incorporated it into their shells, they essentially created their own individual forms of transphasic bioarmor, making them practically impervious to all small arms fire! Relying on their natural advantages, the arche had been one of the few races that managed to resist a voribug invasion of their home star system. They not only defeated the voribugs and turned them all into their latest delicacies, but also developed an awareness that there was life beyond their own limited planets. The arche eventually utilized their unusual aptitude towards certain technologies to construct their own starships and travel the stars for the first time. Their motivation? To find new kinds of 'food' and eat the diverse species that had evolved on other planets! As the arche came into contact with many other local alien civilizations in the Red Ocean, they began to have their fair share of advances and setbacks. It soon became clear that the technology developed by the arche was out of tune with the rest of the local galactic community. This was because the turtle-like aliens derived much of their technology from the functioning of their own intricate biologies. They did not even utilize normal electronics and circuitry like other technology-based races like the puelmers. Instead, all of the tech developed by the arche consisted of solid metallic components that were powered through a strange phenomenon that the Red Two has labeled as 'electronic resonance'. It was basically a fancy and more advanced version of wireless power transmission. It was directly derived from how the arche powered the more extraordinary abilities from their own powerful shells. With entire ships built like gigantic exotic-laden shells, the arche enjoyed a powerful defensive advantage compared to other starfaring races! However, the incredible expense needed to construct these ships heavily limited their production volume. The arche also weren't that numerous to begin with. Their libidos weren't that high and their mating customs were restricted by the fact that only the arche with more impressive shells received the opportunity to procreate. All of this caused the arche to turn into prized targets by the other native races of the Red Ocean! The shells of the arche along with the exceptional materials that made up their highly resilient starships were all considered treasures! Whether other races wanted to use the 'archemetal' as rare trophies, exceptionally resilient hull plating for their own homeships or components of their own protective suits of armor, the demand for any form of archemetal had always remained high! This caused the attempts of the arche to roam around the dwarf galaxy in order to eat tastier delicacies to turn into an existential threat towards their race! In order to prevent their flashy and highly attractive shells and their incredibly valuable 'archeships' from triggering the greed of other races and attract endless aggression, the arche had been forced to turn their formidable technological prowess into avoiding conflict whenever possible. This caused the turtle-like aliens to produce many breakthroughs in the field of stealth technology. Once the arche began to integrate their own brand of stealth systems into their normally flashy archeships, the race no longer endured as many attacks as before! The aliens that had previously been regarded as prey now found themselves regaining the initiative. After all, as long as no one discovered their presence in a star system, the arche always retained the choice to go into action or sneak away without anyone's notice! This stabilized this curious race to an extent. Their population no longer declined, but did not grow quickly either. This was because their material requirements were far in excess of other races. Their high demand for resources was their greatest limitation as a race and as a civilization. The arche resembled the races of the Milky Way a lot more than the Red Ocean in that sense. Their archeships required large quantities of higher grades of tough exotic materials. A relatively small dwarf galaxy could never supply too many of them, and many of the star systems with richer deposits were already firmly occupied by the other major alien races. Phasewater also limited their expansion. The arche apparently did not utilize transphasic energy shield generators. They instead preferred to integrate phasewater directly into their archemetal-clad homeships, which produced formidable defensive results but also demanded much higher quantities of phasewater! Interestingly enough, the arche also produced phase lords among their ranks. The problem with these phase lords was that they diverted a lot of phasewater towards the expansion and strengthening of their turtle-like shells. As these phase lords grew stronger, the phasewater needed to expand and reconfigure their expanded shells grew at an astronomical rate! This was why it was practically unheard of for arche phase lords to grow past a certain threshold and turn into a greater phase lord. The arche did not really possess a lot of enthusiasm towards becoming phase lords. They had little motivation to worship the phase whales as their gods because in their odd alien minds, any species that did not grow strong and beautiful shells were unworthy of their devotion! Even the few arche that chose to become phase lords primarily did so because they wanted to employ greater spatial manipulation abilities to strengthen and vivify their prized shells even further! This was also the only reason why the arche phase lords ended up in leadership positions. It was not because they possessed great personal strength or managed to live a lot longer than the already impressive 700 to 1200 year lifespan of most members of the arche race. The arche phase lords primarily managed to win the respect and obedience of the other arche because their turtle-like shells were a lot larger, stronger and more dazzling in appearance! These days, the arche could no longer drift around the Red Ocean under complete stealth and ambush different aliens in order to satisfy their endless cravings for delicacies. The Red Cabal had mobilized every native alien race to defend their common home galaxy. The vaunted stealth capabilities of the archeships did not prevent the Red Cabal from tracking down the leaders of the arche civilization! Whatever happened during these discussions eventually caused the arche to 'realize' that their collective survival was at stake. The arche had begun to contribute to the collective effort to stop subsequent human incursions and drive these aggressive extra-galactic visitors away from the Red Ocean! The troublesome part about them was that the arche acted so secretly that no one understood the scope of their operations in the hot zones. Ordinary detection tech wasn't strong enough to expose the presence of stealthy archeships. If the arche ever launched an ambush, they usually made so many preparations that their opponents did not even have time to transmit their distress in many cases! Only the mechers and the fleeters possessed the means to restrain the arche, but even they did not record that much information about this elusive and stealthy alien race. Ves never expected that his expeditionary fleet would bump into the arche at this junction. Perhaps he should have. All of the major alien races except for the voribugs had risen up against humanity's encroachment of their native galaxy. Each of them had made their presence felt in one way or another in the later stages of the invasion war. As Ves had accidentally discovered the presence of a hidden archeship in the vicinity of a minefield, he began to entertain a lot of questions. Was this archeship alone, or was she accompanied by other ships of her kind? Had the aliens been paying greater attention to his expeditionary fleet and laid a deliberate ambush, or was this merely a solitary initiative organized by a single enterprising arche leader? What measures did the arche in hiding prepare to turn the tables against the Golden Skull Alliance in the Corellix System? Ves desired the answers to all of these important questions, but there wasn't enough time or information to satisfy his curiosity. Time was short and the original sabotage attack against the incoming yurzen raiding fleet was supposed to start very soon. "The entry of the arche into this star system is completely unforeseen and may have far-reaching effects on our plans." The energy manifestation of Ves told Venerable Zimro. "While it is safest to pull back and forget about the Corellix System, this is a rare and unique opportunity to capture a rare but extremely valuable arche homeship. Are you up to the task of crippling this hidden threat? You need to do this quickly without the benefit of understanding the layout and tech of this strange vessel." Archeships worked a lot differently than the conventional homeships of the native aliens. Ves was not even sure whether the arche utilized traditional warp drives. They have invented their own ones based on archemetal that was not only entirely solid, but also impervious to light damage! "We have little choice." Venerable Zimro spoke with a tone of urgency. "I will not allow these alien turtles to get in the way of saving the lives of the colonists of Corellix III. However, you have a point. We don't have enough time to learn the architecture and the technological principles of the hidden archeship. A few minutes isn't enough for me to cripple the archeship while at the same time catch up to the puelmer heavy cruisers that will drop out of warp soon enough. Our only choice is to rely on our cat to complete this crucial job." "Meow!?" Lucky rose up from his lazy posture on the armrest and looked a lot more alarmed when he heard this latest suggestion. There was no way he wanted to infiltrate a completely new and unknown alien ship! What if the arche possessed powerful tech that could instantly expose his presence and lead to his capture? Ves directed a disapproving glance towards his cat. "You're going on a trip, Lucky. It will be fine. The arche may be strong in certain areas, but their tech is too uneven compared to the puelmers. I am sure you will do fine in this new alien ship. Just think about what you can gain from this adventure. Archemetal is made out of rich amalgamations of valuable exotics. That makes them superfood to your stomach. As long as you can successfully sneak inside, you will be able to enjoy an all-you-can-eat buffet of exotic alien metals!" The mention of archemetal soon caused the gem cat to change his outlook. What would it be like to gorge upon this entirely new category of metals? Since so many alien races prized the properties of archemetal, Lucky might be able to obtain unprecedented benefits from eating this new type of materials! "Meow..."