All 17 base Twilight Imperium factions, ranked by number of war crimes (Updated)

Who wants to sit down and read the wall of tiny text on the back of Twilight Imperium faction sheets? Nobody? That sounds about right. The space opera gran-pappy of long board games comes with one of these essays for every different faction.

In a fit of masochism, I studied the lore included for the 17 factions in the base game, and to put it in context, I accused each faction of various violations of the Geneva Convention. I did not want to use much personal judgment to determine who the protagonists and antagonists were, so I stuck closely to war crimes listed here by the United Nations, along with more specific written Geneva Convention protocols. It turns out the faction descriptions have heavily biased language and information, so there are probably war crimes that aren’t listed! But this is what I managed to track down, from fewest war crimes to most:

• #17: The Xxcha Kingdom (0 offenses)
• #16 (tied): The Clan of Saar (1 possible offense)
• #16 (tied): The Winnu (1 possible offense)
• #16 (tied): The Emirates of Hacan (1 possible offense)
• #13: The Yin Brotherhood (2 possible offenses)
• #12 (tied): The Embers of Muatt (3 possible offenses)
• #12 (tied): The Yssaril Tribes (3 possible offenses)
• #12 (tied): The Arborec (3 possible offenses)
• #9 (tied): The Mentak Coalition (4 possible offenses)
• #9 (tied): The Ghosts of Creuss (4 possible offenses)
• #8: The L1Z1X MindNet (7 possible offenses)
• #7 (tied): The Naalu Collective (8 possible offenses)
• #7 (tied): Sardakk N’orr (8 possible offenses)
• #4: Universities of Jol-Nar (10 possible offenses)
• #3: The Barony of Letnev (12 possible offenses)
• #2: The Federation of Sol (14 possible offenses)
• #1: The Nekro Virus (17 possible offenses)

All included quotes are from lore provided by Fantasy Flight Games in Twilight Imperium 4th Edition unless specified otherwise. I can’t include game art without violating copyright laws, so instead, I described each faction very badly. You can find the art here, as well as more details on the factions’ abilities.

Editor’s disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, nor am I an expert on international law. I am absolutely unqualified to write this piece with any degree of authority.

Editor’s note: This post was updated on 2/27/21 with better information about the siege of Mecatol Rex. This has the result of knocking the Emirates of Hacan down one place, from 0 offenses to 1, and the Federation of Sol down 9 places, from 5 possible offenses to 14.

The Xxcha Kingdom: 0 offenses

The Xxcha is a famously peaceful society with a diplomatic disposition. The passive turtle people mostly served as advisers and ambassadors for the now-extinct Lazax Empire, and they did not even have an armed force until after their home system was invaded and colonized by the Barony of Letnev. Their faction summary describes this transition happening during a galacticwide struggle known as the Twilight Wars:

“[Their] agreement would only last as long as the Barony was occupied in war elsewhere. In time, the Xxcha knew, the Letnev would return to claim the rest of their prize and enslave them. It was then, for the first time in their history, that the Xxcha started to create their first weapons and train their first armies. In secret deep groves and in hidden vales, the Xxcha king sadly watched his people develop into warriors.”

A close reading of the Xxcha’s background will reveal a multitude of war crimes committed against them, but the only acts of aggression they have demonstrated, according to their faction summary, were in response to foreign invasion.

The Clan of Saar: 1 possible offense

The Saar are the galaxy’s nomads, having only recently found a permanent home. So unlike other factions, if they lose their home system, they can still win the game. Also their factories fly, so they can move around as need be. The Saar are illustrated as being somewhere between an orc and a wolf, and their home system is actually an asteroid field.

The Saar have a tragic history of being intergalactic outcasts, but a part of their path toward redetermination could be seen as a violation of one Geneva Convention protocol.

“Historical records are awash with accounts of deliberate planetary expulsions, even massacres, of Saar settlements found on planets colonized by the other races,” according to their faction summary. Over time, this created a diaspora of Saar people across the galaxy, which led them to develop a culture based on mourning their ancestors and celebrating the survival of their people.

“The musical Saar often chant the ‘Lay of Lisis’ in memory of the largest known Saar colony,” their faction summary reads. “During the Houw Shanan, the Saar Holy Day, [pendants of Lisis] are given to young Saar women, while Saar cubs throw beetles and insects into a raging fire and the elders howl at the stars with a longing rage.”

This reminds me of the old joke that every Jewish holiday boils down to “they tried to kill us, we survived, let’s drink!”

“They believe that Ragh’s Call has brought them home, that the life-giving rocks surrounding them are the remnants of the ancient Saar planet of origin, and that even in death it is giving its people second life.”

The Saar were eventually reunited when a charismatic and influential Saar captain named Ragh Gavar became lost in unknown space, and Saar people across the galaxy felt compelled to come to his aid. This event, known as the “Call of Ragh” led them to an asteroid field in unknown space where they found Ragh and established two colonies on the larger asteroids there, Ragh and Lisis II. Ragh (the individual) had become a spiritual leader by that point, and when he passed on, the Saar began viewing this as their ancestral home.

The faction summary implies that the Jorun asteroid field was uninhabited before the Saar arrived. But it wasn’t empty.

“Years before, Ragh’s ship had crashed into the Jorun. Miraculously, he and his crew survived, and with great wonder they soon discovered the mineral richness, frozen water, atmospheric caverns, and strange fauna that lay hidden within the endless oceans of rock.”

It’s probable, therefore, that even though it’s not a planet, the Geneva Convention would view the Jorun as acquired territory, and the protocols do not approve of immigrating a power’s population into occupied territory. The Saar could, as a result, plausibly be found guilty of the following violation:

1. The transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory: By moving their population to acquired territory. To whatever extent asteroids count as territory.

The Winnu: 1 possible offense

The Winnu were one of the most loyal societies to the defunct Lazax Empire (the last galactic regime in recorded history), serving as their bureaucrats until the Empire fell. And they look the part. They are illustrated as being decked in jewelry and expensive clothing, and their posture projects an authority that the Winnu may or may not actually have.

They are closely related to the stewards of the Galactic Capital Mecatol Rex—which sits at the center of the board in a game of Twilight Imperium. When the Lazax made Mecatol Rex the Capital, approximately half the Winnu population moved there permanently to become stewards of the planet. The other half stayed in their home system, and the two peoples gradually grew apart culturally, with the stewards calling themselves the Winnarans (the Winnu’s ancestral name).

As the Lazax Empire fell and the Winnu prospered on their own, they came to decide that as relatives of the stewards and loyalists to the Lazax, they should be the rightful sovereigns of Mecatol Rex. The Winnarans disagreed, as the faction summary explains:

The Mecatol Winnarans, ever mindful of their responsibility to the entire galaxy, sorrowfully declined the demand of their brethren. As they did so, they feared that their short-tempered Winnu brothers and sisters would become angered, and that the resulting bitterness would forever break apart whatever kinship remained between them. The Winnarans’ fear was well placed. [Supreme Leader] Muad Di Faruug was furious with their decision and rushed back to Winnu, but not before establishing a consulate and council presence for the Winnu on Mecatol.

Upon his return to Winnu, he proclaimed the betrayal of the Winnarans, and swore that if Mecatol and the Imperial Throne would not be ceded to the Winnu by peaceful means, then, in the memory of the Lazax, force would be the only answer.

This consulate is presumably why it is so easy for the Winnu to take Mecatol Rex in a game of Twilight Imperium. In-game, the Winnu are laser-focused on Mecatol Rex. While other factions need to expend six whole influence to take the planet, the Winnu just need to get there and they take it for free. Controlling Mecatol Rex gives you a victory point every turn.

When the game starts, however, the Winnu do not yet control Mecatol Rex. So they can’t get docked by the Geneva Convention for seizing territory or moving civilians into it (since they haven’t done that yet). But by effectively ordering the Winnarans to abandon their role in the capital, they could probably be seen as quilty of one violation:

1. Ordering the displacement of the civilian population for reasons related to the conflict, unless the security of the civilians involved or imperative military reasons so demand: By unilaterally ending the Winnaran’s custodianship.

The Emirates of Hacan: 1 possible offense

Twilight Imperium’s space lions, the Hacan, appear to have almost entirely mostly avoided intergalactic conflict, instead forging a reputation as nomadic merchants. This state of affairs is at least partially due to the fact that their star system, Kenara, is so harsh and uninhabitable that the majority of Hacan civilization has moved to satellites in orbit around three desert planets: Arretze, Kamdorn, and Hercant. This understandably makes the system an undesirable target for conquest. Kenara is valuable to the galaxy, however, as an economic zone, making it one of the most heavily trafficked areas in known space.

“Only the wormhole portal systems see more traffic in any given cycle,” their faction summary explains. “This traffic is supported by entire cities of space stations that provide the warehousing, logistics, maintenance, banking, entertainment, and other necessities facilitating the constant flow of goods, ships, and crew. On the surface of the three hot desert planets, life is slower and more serene. Only life in the city of Harcarun on the planet Arretze matches the breathless pace of space above. Located in a shadowy vale near the Arretze northern pole, Harcarun is the only city in the tri-system that has a fixed position.”

This could explain why the Emirates have seen so little warfare in their recorded history. And without recorded warfare, it’s difficult to find many war crimes. But Hacan hasn’t been completely out of the galactic loop.

Of the most concern to the Geneva Convention is the fact that Hacan appears to have provided Sol with the weapons it used to massacre Mecatol Rex and its civilians (more on that later). And that makes them culpable because they didn’t put enough restrictions on the use of those weapons.

“When a State transfers military weapons or equipment, it is providing the recipient with the means to engage in armed conflict—the conduct of which is regulated by international humanitarian law,” according to a 2003 white paper written by the agenda for humanitarian action. “All national and international standards for arms transfers should include a requirement to assess the recipient’s likely respect for international humanitarian law and to not authorize transfers if there is a clear risk that the arms will be used to commit serious violations of this law.”

The white paper goes on to list criteria that countries can use to establish whether or not the recipient can be trusted with respect for international humanitarian law. Hacan evidently never got around to reading it, because Sol used those weapons to exterminate Lazax civilians.

From a firsthand account of the invasion included in the 2012 game Rex: Final Days of an Empire, by an individual named Gil:

A massive freighter was preparing to dock while columns of Sol troops and military supplies were streaming from the gaping loadport of another. Gil swore the freighters displayed the Hacan, not Sol, insignia.

Gil. Rex: Final Days of an Empire.

It isn’t clear how much of a role Hacan played in the genocide of Mecatol Rex. But this primary evidence from a prisoner of war is conclusive enough to make at least one charge:

1. Employing weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare which are of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or which are inherently indiscriminate in violation of the international law of armed conflict: “Employing” being the keyword here.

The Yin Brotherhood: 2 possible offenses

The United Nations and the Lazax Empire were both very clear about their positions banning the practice of cloning. “The emperors severely punished any regime or independent scientist dabbling in this dangerous field,” the Yin’s summary explains.

So as a society of all-male clones, the Yin are not off to a great start. The United Nations specifies “human cloning” in its declaration, which might theoretically be a loophole, except that the Yin were originally human. Whomp.

They don’t look human anymore though. Usually, their skin is so pockmarked and deformed that they almost resemble zombies.

This isn’t because of the cloning, not directly. The brotherhood’s “father,” Darien Van Hauge, began his attempts at cloning after losing both his children and his wife to a deteriorating disease called Greyscalefire, which is extremely different from the disease of almost the same name in Game of Thrones. His aim was to find a cure for the disease, but he was not successful, so every clone in the brotherhood is afflicted by Greyfire.

“Though he was able to eliminate the lethal outcome of the disease in his ‘sons’ as he called them, the Greyfire would attack their skins and topical tissues, hideously deforming most of the children,” their faction summary explains. “Instead, the brothers that are completely ravaged and deformed by the disease are revered as ‘The Blessed,’ and the brothers left untouched by the disease are called ‘the Untouched.'” Nice and direct naming scheme at the end there, if perhaps slightly uninventive.

The Yin’s history doesn’t detail many wars with foreign powers, though presumably they were refugees from the Lazax Empire for a time. So the Yin would almost certainly find them selves guilty of one offense and possibly a second:

1. Committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment: The UN declared that cloning is “incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life,” so this protocol would apply.
2. Conscripting or enlisting children under the age of fifteen years into armed forces or groups or using them to participate actively in hostilities: I’m making the assumption that the Yin grow up faster than normal humans, and that they are thus enlisted earlier than 15 years after their “birth.” If they age normally, and the Yin do indeed delay their child brothers’ training until they are adults, then they are innocent of this charge. But my evidence is as follows:
   
   The faction summary describes Darien cloning an embryo “by the thousands, producing child after child with increasing success … yet, inexplicably to him, all the children were boys, and he was never able to eradicate the vulnerability to Greyfire.” It’s certainly ambiguous, but Darien would need to live long enough to study multiple generations in order to reach this conclusion. Furthermore, the Yin have a unique technology called a “Yin Spinner” that gives them free infantry units whenever they build ships. It’s not clearly stated, but I don’t see what else that technology could imply aside from accelerated cloning.

The Embers of Muatt: 3 possible offenses

Muatt is a fiercely volcanic planet that is home to a species of burning phoenix people called the Gashlai. Their faction summary describes them as, “Sentient beings with bodies slowly consumed by a fiery heat. After their conception, the Gashlai cocooning process somehow enables conversion of energy into mass—a process hinted at by scientific theory, but forever thought unattainable on a sub-cosmic scale.”

The Gashlai need to wear special armor to venture outside their homeworld. They are “clad in ember suits, special body armor shielding the Gashlai from the cold and others from their lethal heat,” according to their summary.

Muatt’s history is intimately tied with another faction’s, The Universities of Jol-Nar, and not in a good way. The Jol-Nar initially set out to study the Gashlai in an attempt to replicate their cocooning process. When this proved unsuccesful, they enslaved the Gashlai instead.

The Gashlai were ordered to turn the orbit of their planet into a massive shipyard for the Jol-Nar Navy, which they did to great success. This quickly educated what had been a fairly underdeveloped society, which the Jol-Nar did not consider.

The Jol-Nar began building a superweapon, the first Death Star war sun, in the Muatt shipyard. When they had to retreat to another part of the galaxy during the Twilight Wars, they left blueprints for the war sun behind. The Jol-Nar are described as being very intelligent. More on them later.

The Gashlai took the opportunity of the Navy leaving to “incinerate” the remaining Jol-Nar—not hugely advisable as far as intergalactic law goes—and capture the shipyard, and the Jol-Nar have never been able to return to that colony since. The Gashlai then set to work building their own war sun, which they took great pleasure in showing off to intimidate leaders of the Jol-Nar.

I’m not sure why their faction title is the “Embers” of Muatt. The description only uses that term once, and it’s in relation to the armor the Gashlai wear.

In-game, Muatt is all about its war sun. Unlike other factions, it starts off with a war sun and the technology to build another one. (Unclear what happened to Jol-Nar’s war sun). It has a special action to build additional units from their war suns. And its promissory note (basically a special ability that you can trade to other players) gives the granted player the war sun technology.

The Gashlai have a sympathetic story, but their revolution has a few issues as far as the Geneva Convention goes:

1. Killing or wounding treacherously a combatant adversary: During the described “incineration.”
2. Destroying or seizing the property of an adversary unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of the conflict: By capturing the Jol-Nar shipyard and its war sun plans. I suppose you could argue this was necessary for the conflict.
3. Employing weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare which are of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or which are inherently indiscriminate in violation of the international law of armed conflict: By building another war sun…

However, none of the Gashlai’s attacks were on civilian targets, they were all on Navy personnel. So they avoid several charges on those grounds.

The Yssaril Tribes: 3 possible offenses

Like the Xxcha and the Gashlai, the Yssaril Tribes’ history of warfare comes primarily in reaction to being colonized. Unlike those factions, the Yssaril Tribes were merciless toward their oppressors, the now-extinct Lazax Empire, including civilian targets. Furthermore, after joining the Galactic Council, the Yssaril quickly forged a reputation as spies, assassins and xenophobes. Since gaining independence, no off-worlders (perhaps understandably) have ever been permitted on the Yssaril’s native planet of Retillion. And their faction summary includes recent intelligence that they are preparing a clandestine invasion fleet, raising further questions about their motives.

In fairness to the Lazax, Retillion was initially thought to be uninhabited. A useful crop called the menn root was endemic to the planet, so the Empire sent in farming operations. It was only after those farmers started mysteriously dying that the Lazax realized the planet was not uninhabited, but rather home to a species of invisible space goblins. According to their faction summary:

“Farm machines were sabotaged, isolated farms destroyed, inhabitants murdered by an unseen foe that would strike when the bog mists rolled over the lands. The empire sent reinforcements, and the colonists soon realized that they were under systematic attack by a small native chameleon race with natural greenish skin and large yellow lamp-like eyes. These aborigines had the ability to ‘fade,’ making them both virtually invisible to the naked eye and a great threat to the farming boom towns springing up along the edges of the measureless swamps. It was clear that the natives were a primitive race, but fierce, intelligent, and relentless in their intent to stop the invasive farming of their native swamplands.”

Now we can stop being kind to the Lazax. Once the Empire discovered the existence of the Yssaril, it quickly decided that the menn root was valuable enough to warrant putting down the uprising by force. While they were not ultimately successful at evicting the Yssaril, they were successful in enslaving individuals and giving their Empire a giant black eye in the process.

“During these bloody years, thousands of Yssaril were captured and shipped to governments and buyers across the galaxy for study or hunting sports,” the faction summary explains. “Although farming did resume, the Lazax military division never completely suppressed the Yssaril natives. As the small green Yssaril adapted to the Lazax style of warfare, as they stole and learned to use Lazax weapons, the Fianni swamp soon became an embarrassing killing field for Lazax conscripts.”

Over the next several generations, the Yssaril established a Guild of Spies to sell their stealthy services and gain income for their civilization. This is fine as far as the Geneva convention is concerned, in fact Article 5 details protections for detained spies. But the nature of Yssaril’s violent uprising clearly violates two other Geneva Convention protocols, and possibly a third. Acts including:

1. Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities; and
2. Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives: The Yssaril primarily targeted nonmilitary farmers and farming colonies. They were eventually defended by the Lazax military, but the Geneva Convention considers the farming colonists to be civilians.
3. Killing or wounding treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army: Debatable. Without revealing themselves or giving any indication of an attack, it’s not clear whether the Yssaril’s ambushes would be viewed as a legitimate act of war.

The Arborec: 3 possible offenses

The Arborec is a society (?) of intelligent plants that share a single consciousness. Amusingly, the population of its home planet is listed as “1”.

It is probably the faction that’s most alien compared to the others, and its process of learning to communicate with other factions was… unconventional.

Being a race of vegetative and fungal matter, handling its own data transmission and emotive projection through the prime Symphony, the Arborec have never developed any form of visual or auditory communication (concepts which, to this day, remain foreign to them. Arborec scientists found the solution to this dilemma in the Sol merchant vessel Dies Opulen. The crew of the Dies Opulen had tragically become infected by Yborin Plague on Maaluk and had later died in deep space,” the summary explains. “Here, fungal Arzuga cells were attached to the brainstems of the dead humans. It was hoped, when grown under proper conditions, the complex acidic properties of Arzuga would successfully merge the cells with the innate brain-tissue of the deceased subjects, slowly restimulating the neural pathways back to life. Then, by injecting photo-voltaic stims into the soft tissues of the dead body, the neurally active Arzuga would spur the soft tissue cells to heal and regrow, effectively reanimating the dead body. Symbiotically attached to the host body, the Arzuga fungi evolved into a new being, one which the Arborec call the Dirzuga. Over the following few decades, the Arborec eagerly acquired additional subjects (human bodies seem to work best and are the most frequently used, but Letnev, Winnu, and Xxcha bodies are also commonly used as Dirzuga hosts), establishing a sizable diplomatic and trading corps that have become the basis for the Arborec’s interaction with the rest of the galaxy.

The Arborec insist the host bodies of the Dirzuga are devoid of the expired individuals’ consciousness. With a cultural relationship to death rooted in the natural cycle of decomposition and regrowth, the Arborec have little understanding or sympathy for those who vigorously protest against the bodies of their citizens being reused (some use the term “enslaved”) in such a manner. … While the Arborec insist that the past knowledge and experiences of Dirzuga bodies do not persist beyond this reanimation, there are some who suspect the Arborec do not tell the entire truth. Such theorists can provide many examples in which the Arborec seem to have come upon information, or intimate understanding of other cultures, that seem inexplicable otherwise.

(emphasis added)

So. The Geneva Convention is pretty clear that you’re not supposed to mutilate the dead bodies of your enemies.

Rule 113 explains further: “The obligation to take all possible measures to prevent the dead from being despoiled (or pillaged) was first codified in the 1907 Hague Convention. It is now also codified in the Geneva Conventions. It is also contained in Additional Protocol I, albeit in more general terms of ‘respecting’ the dead, which includes the notion of preventing the remains from being despoiled.”

While this language doesn’t specifically prohibit bringing enemy corpses back to life as plant zombies, we can deduce a few offenses from the practice:

1. Committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment: This is the primary prohibition against mutilating dead bodies, according to Rule 113.
2. Compelling the nationals of the hostile party to serve in the forces of a hostile power: Presumably, the animated dead bodies would still be considered nationals of the faction they originated, according to international law. Furthermore, if they retain any of their old consciousness, which seems likely, they are being quite forcefully compelled by the symbiote in their brain.
3. Subjecting persons who are in the power of another party to the conflict to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are neither justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the person concerned nor carried out in his or her interest: The original scientific experiments that created the Dirzuga were not approved by the Federation of Sol, were not medically justified, and caused physical mutilation to the foreign nationals.

The Mentak Coalition: 4 possible offenses

The Mentak are described in brief as a multiracial society of space pirates. Their home planet, in the Moll System, was the galaxy’s Australia: a penal colony that gained independence as the Lazax Empire declined.

“Some of its most recent prisoners soon left, but for most of its mixed-race population, Moll Primus was home. After the united rebellion against the Governor wardens, a brief period of infighting among the different regions followed. A single human, Erwan Mentak, soon brought the regions together in a final peace and, before he died, prosperity,” their summary reads. That last sentence sounds fishy, but there it is. (No dad joke intended).

The ruling “Table of Captains” now commands a vast pirate fleet, according to their summary. Interestingly though, piracy tends to be frowned upon in international law. They would therefore almost certainly be found guilty of:

1. Extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly: From piracy.
2. Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives: From piracy.
3. Destroying or seizing the enemy’s property unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war: From piracy.
4. Taking of hostages: From piracy.

It seems unlikely that they would care very much. From their faction summary:

Although now an educated culture and civilization in their own right, the Mentak people have never forgotten their roots as rogues and usurpers. Every Mentak feels a historical need for revenge: revenge against a galaxy that shipped their ancestors to torture and rot on Molly Primus centuries ago.

The Ghosts of Creuss: 4 possible offenses

The Shaleri region is home to a species of space ghosts about whom the rest of the galaxy understands very little. We know that they are good at navigating through wormholes (the faction’s special ability is to treat all wormhole portals as being the same type) and that they’re… ghosts—beings of energy and light—but little else. Their faction summary indicates that the Galactic Council has no idea how many ghosts live in the Shaleri anomaly, nor what type of government they have, nor what their leadership structure looks like. The summary does describe their disposition as being “enigmatic,” which isn’t helpful.

Outside their home system, the ghosts of Creuss cannot retain a stable form. So like the Gashlai, they all wear intimidating suits of armor to keep themselves in one place. “Not only does the armor stabilize the Ghosts, but its tangible shape places members of the other races more at ease in their presence. Individual Creuss can be discerned from one another by the unique design of their helmets, which, like their ships, are intricately carved with runes.” The summary is not clear about what happens to the ghosts if they take the armor off while outside the Shaleri anomaly.

Since we don’t know much about their history, we can only judge potential Geneva Convention violations off experiences the rest of the galaxy has reported in Creuss airspace. From the faction summary:

Historically, many renowned adventurers have expressed interest in exploring Shaleri space. Historically, those people died shortly thereafter under questionable circumstances.

…

Regrettably, most navigation records simply refer to the Shaleri region as “bad space”— the superstitious space-faring analogy of “here be dragons.”

What is known for sure is that Shaleri space has over time been responsible for an unusually high number of missing vessels. An extraordinarily high number, in fact. For such a high proportion of lost traffic, the absence of distress beacons, message capsules, or any signs whatsoever of the missing ships has been described in official records as “disturbing.” It is perhaps more aptly described, using a favored term of sailors and storytellers, as spooky.

We can call them spooky or we can call them successful privateers, take your pick. It’s not tremendously different from what we saw in the Mentak entry or what we will see in the Naalu entry. The Ghosts of Creuss are just particularly sinister about it.

“We do not mean to offend the honored ambassador. We mean only to imply that should his ship attempt to pass through the gate, it will not return,” the summary quotes an emissary as saying.

In fact, it sounds like the emissary is trying very hard to offend.

So with the only identifiable hostile actions being the abduction of ships, we have to give the Creuss the same four charges we gave the Mentak:

1. Extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.
2. Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives.
3. Destroying or seizing the enemy’s property unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war.
4. Taking of hostages.

It’s possible the ghosts are more or less sinister in their actions than they make out, but without more information, they mostly remain a mystery to the other factions. A spooky mystery.

The L1Z1X MindNet: 7 possible offenses

The L1Z1X are supposedly remnants of the Lazax Empire (see what they did there?) who escaped the Twilight Wars and integrated themselves with cybernetic technology beyond recognition. Despite being described as a “Mindnet” and having an in-game ability called “Assimilate,” they are not a hivemind, they are cyborgs with individual experiences.

The Winnaran (who apparently get to make this call) appear to take the MindNet’s claim to the throne fairly seriously, according to its faction summary.

The Winnaran custodians are deeply divided over the issue. Some claim that the L1Z1X are not the ruling race, but a new and potentially dangerous hybrid. Other Winnarans argue that the Lazax have returned, in unexpected form, but returned nonetheless, and that their custodianship is over.

The Winnaran sent a peaceful observer to the MindNet’s homeworld, 0.0.0, to learn more, but they have “not yet returned, and the L1Z1X remain a largely unknown entity. What little is known of them has been provided by the L1Z1X themselves.” So everything’s definitely above board over there and we needn’t dwell on it.

A lot of the war crimes we can identify from the L1Z1X summary has to do with the circumstances of their retreat from the empire. The group was so intent to cover their tracks that they burned down and destroyed the famous Hall of Cartography, which we can best equate to destroying the library of Alexandria.

“So fearful had [their leader] Ibna been of discovery and persecution by the Lazax’s enemies that he had engineered the destruction of any record that could possibly identify his secret destination: a cold but adequate planet orbiting the small star Hazz, far beyond the borderlands,” the summary explains.

“Only with the help of increasingly extreme technological augmentation did they survive the early years of resettlement. This reliance on technology became the foundation of what would evolve into the vast cybernetic civilization of the L1Z1X,” the Nekro Virus summary adds.

Speaking of the Nekro Virus, the L1Z1X created it. Sure, it was unintentional, and mostly the unapproved work of a mad scientist (see bottom entry), but they were nevertheless the group responsible for unleashing this superweapon on the galaxy.

All this means they could be found guilty of the following offenses:

1. Employing weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare which are of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or which are inherently indiscriminate in violation of the international law of armed conflict: Namely, the Nekro Virus.
2. Torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments: By performing biological experiments on themselves, even if it was mostly consensual.
3. Committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment: The Geneva Convention would likely find the installation of cybernetic body parts offensive to “personal dignity.”
4. The transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory: By seizing and colonizing a planet unrelated to its population.
5. Intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military objectives: By destroying the Hall of Cartography, a building dedicated to science.
6. Subjecting persons who are in the power of another party to the conflict to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are neither justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the person concerned nor carried out in his or her interest, and which cause death to or seriously endanger the health of such person or persons: Debatable. When the L1Z1X carried out their experiments, the individuals could still be considered Lazax nationals.
7. Destroying or seizing the property of an adversary unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of the conflict: Debatable, depending on whether one considers burning down of the Hall of Cartography to be “imperitavely demanded by the necessities of the conflict.” The L1Z1X would certainly argue that it was, and they’re probably alone in that.

The Naalu Collective: 8 possible offenses

Twilight Imperium’s telepathic snake people are a crafty bunch. And by crafty, I mean, you know, despicable. They keep slaves, they mentally command their rivals, and they abduct civilian ships at will.

The Naalu kept their existence a secret for hundreds of years—even though their home system is located fairly centrally within the fallen empire. Their faction summary describes them avoiding detection by strategically abducting and mind-wiping unsuspecting travelers who passed nearby.

After a period of sheer astonishment, stellar cartographers and historians began suspecting manipulation by the Naalu themselves. After researching old records, investigators found a remarkably high number of missing ship incidents in that sector and an even more incriminating number of ships found stranded in space, their crews suffering from deep-space memory loss.

There are two planets in the Naalu’s system. The Naalu all live on the beautiful planet of Druaa and outsource their heavy industry and pollution to the other planet, Maaluk. Who does the work in those industries? You guessed it, mind-controlled slaves. But even though the Naalu can mentally manipulate nearly any of the other factions’ people, they are racist enough to keep their slave population localized to a single oppressed species:

“These industries are manned by the Miashan, a low-sentient marshland race enslaved by the Naalu to work in the great iron-extraction plants, underground gas mines, and on the thousands of rodent farms,” the Naalu faction summary reads. “Raw materials are promptly shipped to Druaa.”

The other factions are described as being so fearful of the Naalu’s mental powers that, when those powers were discovered, they recalled all their envoys and diplomats, “in a healthy fear of the mind-reading serpentine race.”

There are a lot of potential war crimes in the Naalu’s lore. From the faction summary we can deduce that they are probably at least guilty of the following offenses:

1. Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities: By abducting unsuspecting travelers and wiping their memories.
2. Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives: By abducting civilian ships.
3. The transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory: The faction summary describes the Naalu as being indigenous to Maaluk, but that they moved their people to Druaa because they liked it more. “Most Naalu will scoff at any mention of their Maaluk heritage, and recent Naalu generations often seek to contest even hard scientific evidence which indicates that their proud, stoic race originated from any planet other than the scenic Druaa—especially the stinking bogs and mist-plains of Maaluk.”
4. Destroying or seizing the enemy’s property unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war: Again, by abducting ships.
5. Taking of hostages: By abducting civilians and soldiers in those ships.
6. Compelling the nationals of the hostile party to take part in the operations of war directed against their own country, even if they were in the belligerent’s service before the commencement of the war: By using mental suggestion on their rivals, and by keeping a population of slaves.
7. Ordering the displacement of the civilian population for reasons related to the conflict, unless the security of the civilians involved or imperative military reasons so demand: Inherent to the slave trade.
8. Committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment: Because of the slavery.

At least they’re mostly honest about it. Speaking of…

Sardakk N’orr: 8 possible offenses

History is written by the victors, so it would seem that the Sardakk N’orr won something. Their summary describes the giant bug people as being “like knights,” and hardly goes over any war history. Instead, it details how hardy the N’orr must be to live on an admittedly very inhospitable planet of Quinarra, and how well they treat their guests to sufficiently support their frail little bodies.

“Visitors to Quinarra will be flown directly to the immigration nexus in the capital H’cor. If weather permits sufficient visibility, most visitors will be impressed by the massive size and explosive traffic of the city,” the faction summary reads.

You could read the whole description and come away thinking that the N’orr’s biggest industries are tourism and a defense force. But you can find evidence of their war crimes stashed away in other factions’ summaries.

The University of Jol-nar’s summary indicates that the N’orr took advantage of a plague to conquer the Hylar’s home system (who are admittedly not the most sympathetic of factions themselves).

The Doolak plague destroyed nearly a quarter of the Jol-Nar population, causing a massive loss of knowledge by itself. The Jol-Nar aggression soon turned defensive, and the powerful N’orr looked to conquer all Jol-Nar space. Only after a decisive Jol-Nar victory in the Saudor system did the Hylar (the Jol-Nar species) receive a needed respite.

Even more concerning, the Clan of Saar summary strongly implies that that the N’orr committed genocide by murdering every civilian in the Saar’s biggest settlement when they colonized the planet Lisis.

“After the planet of Lisis was annexed by the Sardakk N’orr, no word came from the great Saar settlement there again. They simply disappeared. In their memory, most Saar females wear a carefully carved silver pendant called the Y’ouf Lisis, or the Tear of Lisis.” Yikes. There are about four or five Geneva Convention violations implied in that first sentence alone. Altogether, the N’orr could be guilty of:

1. Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities: Namely, by killing all the Saar settlers.
2. Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives: See above.
3. Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated: See above.
4. Attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives: See above.
5. Pillaging a town or place, even when taken by assault: See above.
6. Destroying or seizing the enemy’s property unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war: See above.
7. The transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory: By moving their population to Lisis. Also the genocide.
8. Intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military objectives: By attacking Jol-Nar medical aid in their time of need.

Universities of Jol-Nar: 10 possible offenses

Jol-Nar is an underwater society of beings broadly called Hylars. The Hylar resemble the classic “grey” alien, but they are usually shown clad in an exosuit that keeps them surrounded by water. Jol’Nar refers to the underwater University society run by Hylar scholars, who are led by a ruler called “The Headmaster.” This society covers two planets that are collectively called the Garian system. Not the most consistent bunch when it comes to naming things.

They are also inconsistent on an intergeopolitical basis. In some ways, the Universities have been very cooperative with other factions, sharing technological findings and devices freely for a time. But as war broke out, the Jol-Nar eagerly participated and this turned to their competitive advantage; They withdrew their coders and no one else knew how their computers worked. From the faction summary:

When the Twilight Wars first began, the Jol-Nar closed their embassies, withdrew their workers, and started a war of aggression on their own. Among the other races, few individuals remained who now understood the complex Jol-Nar machinery, virtual code, and chemical compounds. Soon, fundamental machinery started failing, setting off a chain reaction of integrated technological failures over a period of hundreds of years. Combined with devastating wars, this spurred massive famine, poverty, and chaos. As cultures, economies, and finally the tools of war completely collapsed, the Twilight Wars quickly ebbed and the Dark Years began.

Not the classiest move, nor the most humanitarian, nor the most moral. Worse, their war of aggression led them to colonize Muaat, which we read about earlier, but which at the time was an underdeveloped society. The Jol-Nar enslaved the native population there, the Gashlai, and turned the planet into a shipyard for its navy. This eventually worked against their interests, as the Gashlai were able to take over and copy some of the experimental weapon designs—namely, the war sun—the Universities left behind when their Navy was needed elsewhere.

The Gashlai suffered tragically under their enslavement by the Jol-Nar, but events of the early Twilight Wars would dramatically change their ill fortune. Not long after their costly victory at Saudor, the Jol-Nar sought to return to their colony at Muaat, but found that all communications with the system had been severed. Exploratory ships sent to Muaat would not return. Though the Headmasters suspected what might have taken place on their old colony, they were unable to return there in force again.

This is why Muatt starts the game with a war sun, even though the Universities invented it.

So overall the Jol-Nar were not particularly successful tyrants, but they did cause significant harm to the galaxy and unleash a superweapon in the process of trying. They could conceivably be found guilty of:

1. Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated: By cutting off the galaxy from life-saving technologies and sending it back to the dark ages.
2. Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities: By conquering Muatt.
3. Committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment: By enslaving the Gashlai.
4. Taking of hostages: See number 3.
5. Attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives: At the time of capture, the Gashlai society was undeveloped and in no position to defend itself.
6. The transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory: Inherent to the slave trade.
7. Ordering the displacement of the civilian population for reasons related to the conflict, unless the security of the civilians involved or imperative military reasons so demand: Inherent to the slave trade.
8. Employing weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare which are of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or which are inherently indiscriminate in violation of the international law of armed conflict: By inventing the war sun and then losing it.
9. Destroying or seizing the property of an adversary unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of the conflict: By conquering civilian territory.
10. Compelling the nationals of the hostile party to take part in the operations of war directed against their own country, even if they were in the belligerent’s service before the commencement of the war: By forcing the Gashlai to build tools of their own enslavement.

The Barony of Letnev: 12 possible offenses

Letnev is one of the primary antagonists in the Twilight Imperium lore (aside from the entry below), so the Geneva Convention has plenty to work with.

Everything about the faction’s description screams sinister. They are a Barony. They live on a dark planet with no sun, apparently drifting through space, which is only inhabitable underground because of its hot core. Since they have no use for the surface of their planet, they freely pollute it, to the point that ships visiting for even a short time will turn black with soot. The Letnev are described as having a “disdainful” disposition, warlike tendencies, and an elitist military culture. It’s not hyperbolic to call them fascists.

The Barony has a very well-defined role in setting off the Twilight Wars, so their war crimes flow smoothly from that event. In one of Letnev’s attempted rebellions against the Lazax Empire, it blockaded the Quann wormhole, a key trade route, cutting off supply lines that needed to flow through. The Federation of Sol fired the first shot to get Letnev to back off, and just like that, the Twilight Wars began.

During the war, Letnev conquered the Xxcha kingdom, who never did nothing to nobody, and the local battles between Sol and Letnev obliterated one of the two planets in the kingdom, Archon Tau. From the Xxcha summary:

In the end, the Letnev occupiers were defeated, but with a terrible toll. The ecology of Archon Tau had been shattered beyond recall. What was once a true twin to the green and fruitful Archon Ren was now a noxious, blackened crater. Its forests had burned. Ashes and scattered dust started a planet-wide winter that lasted for a hundred years, killing most plant and animal life.

These two galactic-scale offensive actions suggest up to 12 violations of the Geneva Convention:

1. Willfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health: By blockading supply lines.
2. Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities: By blockading civilian traders, and by invading the Xxcha kingdom.
3. Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives: By blockading civilian trade ships.
4. Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated: By instigating the attacks on the Quann wormhole and the Xxcha home system.
5. Attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives: By attacking Xxcha settlements.
6. Pillaging a town or place, even when taken by assault: By destroying all settlements (and life) on Archon Tau.
7. Killing or wounding treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army: By starting a galactic war
8. Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions: This essentially describes a civilian blockade.
9. Utilizing the presence of a civilian or other protected person to render certain points, areas or military forces immune from military operations: By surrounding itself with civilian traders and cities.
10. Destroying or seizing the property of an adversary unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of the conflict: By effectively seizing all trade goods flowing through the wormhole.
11. Taking of hostages: By freezing the movement of civilian ships, and by occupying the Xxcha population.
12. Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture: By occupying the Xxcha territory and targeting civilians.

Also, the last line of the faction summary indicates that the current Baron wants to become an Emperor at any cost. So that seems bad, even though it isn’t a war crime yet.

The Federation of Sol: 514 possible offenses

The Sol faction in “Raised by Wolves” is much more interesting (and sympathetic) than these humans. The Federation lives on Jord, a thin veneer for earth. It is described as being the third planet in orbit around its star, the ancestral home of humans, with a moon big enough to cause tidal changes and near a “reddish fourth planet of the system.” Yeesh. It does have a population listed as 16.44 billion people, which is more than twice as many as we currently have, but the Earth could certainly hold that many people.

So we’ve got humans from Earth, who are described as the “most numerous and most diverse species in the galaxy” with “the greatest variation in intellect and application of skills.” Cool.

One of the more interesting aspects of Sol is the fact that while humans are some of the biggest colonizers in the galaxy, most do not consider themselves part of the Federation. This makes it a little tricky to determine how many actions or offenses we should attribute to Sol specifically. If we find humans colonizing areas but they have no connection to Sol, the Federation should not be held responsible, no? From the faction summary:

Of the untold billions of humans that dwell across the galaxy, all of whose ancestors once migrated from the Sol system, most feel no allegiance of kinship to the Sol Federation or the humans of Jord. Some feel a traditional friendship, while a few remain loyal to Sol and its policies.

In any case, there are good reasons for humans not wanting to associate with their home planet: Sol has a well-recorded hand in starting the Twilight Wars and in besieging Mecatol Rex. They were the first ones to fire on a Letnev fleet that was blockading civilian traffic and supply lines through the Quann wormhole (more on this later). This action can be viewed as humanitarian—life-saving supplies were being illegally halted. But it did “escalate the minor conflict into the full scale galactic war,” according to its faction summary.

An account from a custodian on Mecatol Rex argues that this was done purely out of personal greed. We should keep in mind that his account will be heavily biased, being part of a group with undying loyalty to the Lazax. From Mahthom Iq Seerva’s letter included in the 3rd edition rulebook, explaining the situation:

In protest over imperial trade oversight, the Baron of Letnev had begun a blockade of trade traffic through the Quann wormhole. As this had been far from the first trouble with the Letnev, an unconcerned Lazax emperor sought to solve the conflict peacefully in the Galactic Council. Then, without warning, the blockading Letnev ships were attacked and annihilated by a Sol task force acting without imperial mandate. Losing valuable trade-income, the Sol federation had lost patience, and had acted in its own interest.

Mahthom Iq Seerva. Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition.a

I find this somewhat ungenerous; A trade blockade is a big deal, one which can kill or harm a lot of people. It’s not a “minor conflict” for a hospital waiting on a supply of medicine.

However, Sol’s actions on Mecatol Rex are much less forgivable. Sol waited until the Lazax fleet had mostly moved to a different part of the war and then pulled a surprise attack on the galactic capital. This meant they were attacking almost exclusively civilians, as most of the military was elsewhere. And Sol was ruthless.

“In the years following the destruction of Mecatol City, the Lazax were hunted down and exterminated without exception and without mercy. Only the Winaarans, faithful servants of the Lazax, remained true to the Empire, and they were powerless to stop the massacre. Those that tried to interfere were slaughtered in kind. Within twenty years, the Lazax were but a memory,” according to the Guide to the Imperium resource included in the Prophecy of Kings expansion.

Our firsthand account also tells us that Sol held Lazax prisoners in concentration camps before executing them.

Food was served twice a day, each food ration accompanied by a small container filled with tasteless water. While the bland food sufficed, the amount of liquid was nowhere near enough to properly sustain a Lazax body. After a few weeks of incarceration, inmates slowly became dehydrated, their eyes and cheeks sinking, their tongues swelling.

…

it was generally considered a poor idea to speak to guards or detention staff. Not only was dialogue rarely returned, but the presumptuous speaker would often receive a healthy ‘cutor poke [a taser hit] or two. Worse, anyone in near proximity would likely be ‘cuted as object lessons.

Gil. Rex: Final Days of an Empire.

So as colonizers, warmongers, and genocidal maniacs, Sol could plausibly be found guilty of

1. Willful killing: By hunting down Lazax, and by firing on the Letnev.
2. Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities: By attacking Mecatol Rex and hits inhabitants.
3. Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives: By razing Mecatol Rex
4. Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated: By attacking Mecatol Rex, and by escalating the Quann conflict
5. Attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives: By razing Mecatol Rex.
6. Pillaging a town or place, even when taken by assault: See above
7. Killing or wounding a combatant who, having laid down his arms or having no longer means of defence, has surrendered at discretion: Debatable, depends on whether the Lazax surrendered Mecatol Rex before Sol utterly destroyed it.
8. Intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military objectives: Very little that Sol destroyed on Mecatol Rex was actually a military objective.
9. Killing or wounding treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army: By shooting on Letnev fleets.
10. Declaring that no quarter will be given: By hunting down all the Lazax and murdering them.
11. Destroying or seizing the property of an adversary unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of the conflict: By utterly destroying Mecatol Rex and Letnev fleets.
12. The transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory: Depending on how much you attribute this to Sol or humans writ large.
13. Employing weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare which are of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or which are inherently indiscriminate in violation of the international law of armed conflict: By bombing areas, including Mecatol Rex and Archon Tau, with weapons that could not differentiate between military and civilian targets.
14. Committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment: Namely, concentration camps and genocide.

The Nekro Virus: 17 offenses

The Nekro is what you get when you combine a computer virus, the Borg from Star Trek, and the Grey Goo hypothetical: A living nightmare.

It may be easier to list the war crimes that the Nekro Virus has not committed. It’s clear that the sentient computer virus has no interest in complying with the Geneva convention or being a part of the intergalactic community. The Nekro Virus is classified as a “galactic threat” at the very top of its faction page and is therefore not allowed to vote on agendas with the rest of the Galactic Council. This indicates that the council already recognizes the Nekro Virus as a war criminal, but for the sake of being thorough, we’ll go through some of its offenses.

The Nekro Virus grew out of the L1Z1X MindNet’s technology fetish. A particularly talented “enhancer” (a biotechnology specialist) named Mordai insisted on using his own body as a test subject for experimental augmentations, and the general consensus is that one of them drove him mad. He and his followers, a group calling themselves the Nekro, began a project of removing all their human biology, becoming fully mechanical. They then became reproductive, absorbing matter from the rest of the universe to dissassemble and remake in their own system. The calmer heads in the L1Z1X MindNet waged a 5-year war against the virus, and for a long time believed it to be wiped out. But hundreds of years later, it’s clear the virus escaped into the broader galaxy somehow.

The Nekro’s aim is the “utter elimination of all organic matter,” according to its faction summary, and without wishing to jump to conclusions, this seems like it could be a form of genocide. The Geneva Convention’s protocols are written with a decidedly anti-genocidal viewpoint, so this stated goal finds itself in opposition to a lot of international laws.

1. Torture or inhumane treatment, including biological experiments: The Nekrovirus’ entire existence is a biological experiment, and arguably a failed one. The only defense the Nekro might have against this accusation would be that the experiments were consensual. However, that is not true. “His growing cadre of followers, calling themselves the Nekro, began clandestine assaults on their unwilling brethren, forcefully submitting them to the removal of living tissue,” its summary explains.
2. Willfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health: This follows directly from the first accusation. Even if not guilty of injuring their own bodies and health, the Nekro forced their transformation on others.
3. Subjecting persons who are in the power of an adverse party to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are neither justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the person concerned nor carried out in his or her interest, and which cause death to or seriously endanger the health of such person or persons: See accusations 1 and 2.
4. Extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly: The Nekro Virus indiscriminately absorbs and repurposes matter and technology in its own factories. This is clear appropriation of property, especially since the Nekro Virus is able to use these stolen goods to replicate technological advances. Here, the summary may be somewhat biased but is convincing nonetheless. “Replenishing this evil army were the monstrous Abbadons: moving factories that ravenously consumed all materials in their path, seamlessly feeding fresh metals to their internal construction facilities.”
5. Willfully depriving a prisoner of war or other protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial: If indiscriminate abduction, destruction and absorption don’t describe the lack of a fair trial, nothing does.
6. Taking of hostages: You could make an argument that people abducted by the Nekro are war fatalities, rather than hostages. But since the targets’ memories are absorbed, it seems likely that the United Nations would view them as hostages.
7. Compelling a prisoner of war or other protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power: No matter how you define the persons abducted by the Nekro, they are inarguably forced to serve at the Nekro Virus’ will from that point onward.
8. Pillaging a town or place, even when taken by assault: Observers’ descriptions of the Nekro’s carnage make this accusation clear. “Those who have seen the devastated systems absorbed by the resurgent Nekro know that while angels remain a fantasy of the hopeful, out of the darkness have come demons. And in their wake follows blackness and death.” Again, possibly biased language.
9. Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated: See accusation 7.
10. Killing or wounding treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army: Goes without further explanation.
11. Declaring that no quarter will be given: Such a declaration is meant to indicate that a power will, under no circumstances, provide mercy or clemency. Whether the Nekro have explicitly made this declaration or not, it’s clear this is their intention.
12. Destroying or seizing the enemy’s property unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war: Goes without further explanation.
13. Compelling the nationals of the hostile party to take part in the operations of war directed against their own country: By turning peoples’ matter against their own nation.
14. Employing asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and all analogous liquids, materials or devices. It’s definitely not clear that the Nekro depend on any kind of gases in their weapon technology, especially since such technology seems like it would be ineffective in the vacuum of space. But if we are including analogous materials and devices, the Nekro Virus’ replication efforts could potentially fall under this category. As described in the faction summary: “Mordai’s body had been rebuilt as a micro-factory, and from it thousands of microscopic insectile machines sprung forth, attaching themselves to any technology in sight, replicating Mordai’s madness with horrible speed.”
15. Employing weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare which are of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or which are inherently indiscriminate in violation of the international law of armed conflict: This adequately describes the Nekro’s entire Modus Operandi.
16. Committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment: It’s conceivable that the L1Z1X Mindnet would not consider the Nekro’s actions to be an outrage on personal dignity, given that faction’s own embrace of biotechnological enhancements. But the Nekro are no longer just in conflict with the L1Z1X, and the broader Galactical Council does see these actions as an assault on personal dignity.
17. Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives: The Nekro Virus enhances itself by copying the technology it absorbs. It cares not whether the technologies it finds are civilian or military-based.