Al Musa
Implacable enemies of the Q’Kwagat spiders.
Overview
The Al-Musa were a fiercely independent and deeply insular tribal people who thrived, if such a word can be applied, on the harshest desert and barren worlds the galaxy had to offer. They carved out an empire that, at its zenith, sprawled across 35,852,944 star systems, a staggering figure made all the more impressive by their disjointed internal structure and their general distrust of anything beyond their own tribes. Their hostility to outsiders was legendary — it was said that no two tribes would treat a visitor the same way. One might trade rare salts for machine parts, while another would slit the same visitor’s throat without a word.
Their fractured nature meant that unity was fleeting, and war often began without any formal declaration. Perhaps the greatest of their conflicts — certainly the most infamous — was their blood feud with the Q’Kwagat. That conflict became so personal that neither side took prisoners, nor even acknowledged the possibility of negotiation. The feud outlived generations, with songs sung over campfires about ancient duels fought in the sands of dead worlds. And yet, despite their savage reputation, one question haunts scholars even today: how did such a divided people hold so much territory for so long?
Some believe the answer lay in their very nature — the Al-Musa were unrelenting colonizers of the uninhabitable. Where others saw lifeless rock, the Al-Musa saw opportunity. They spread across barely habitable worlds with a stubbornness unmatched in the known galaxy, finding ways to survive where no others could.
Civil Structure
The governance of the Al-Musa was less a system and more an uneasy truce between fiercely independent tribes. Each tribe was a law unto itself, ruled by its own council of elders, whose authority was based less on laws than on the weight of stories told and battles won. Only in times of great crisis would these councils gather in a rare conclave — a meeting not so much to govern as to negotiate temporary cooperation. Often, the conclave ended with new grudges formed, and rarely with clear decisions.
This lack of central authority had profound consequences, especially during external conflicts. One tribe might march to war against an alien fleet, while a neighboring tribe — bound by ancient vendettas or petty grievances — would refuse to fight at all. This meant that no two Al-Musa armies were alike. One might be composed entirely of desert-trained raiders on sand-crawling warbikes, while another fought with obsolete laser muskets and water-starved infantry.
On several desert worlds, archaeological digs uncovered ancient tribal meeting halls, their walls covered in overlapping carvings — records of pacts made and broken, alliances formed and betrayed. It was not uncommon for neighboring tribes to wage wars between themselves even while ostensibly fighting a larger external threat. And yet, through sheer ferocity and the willingness to endure, they held together, if only barely.
Military
The Al-Musa military was less an organized force and more a loose patchwork militia, raised and armed by individual tribes when the need arose. Every soldier swore loyalty to their elders first, their tribe second, and only rarely to the so-called "Empire." This led to chaotic battlefields, where some units fought in unison while others bickered over ancient slights in the middle of firefights.
The Sfahis, an elite force drawn from all tribes, were the rare exception. These warriors were feared not just for their skill but for their willingness to shed all tribal identity, adopting the black-veiled uniform of the Sfahis brotherhood. One tale recounts how, during the Siege of Hiraam’s Cradle, a wounded Sfahis commander was offered water by a fellow Al-Musa from his home tribe. The commander refused the drink, saying, "I have no tribe but the blade." He died of thirst within the hour — but his story lived on for generations.
Weapons were a chaotic mix — one soldier might carry a gleaming pulse rifle, the next an antique proton musket salvaged from a battlefield centuries old. This mismatch occasionally led to tragicomic scenes, such as the Battle of Duna Gorge, where two neighboring companies — one armed with plasma carbines, the other with pre-contact rail rifles — accidentally opened fire on each other, each assuming the unfamiliar weapons belonged to the enemy.
The navy, such as it was, reflected the same fractured reality. Each tribe contributed ships of wildly varying quality, from swift sandhawk cutters to lumbering war brigs scavenged from forgotten conflicts. The famed Battleship Zafira, a relic from a fallen alien empire, served not as a warship but as a floating Conclave Hall, where the elders would meet under the flickering glow of alien star charts.
Special Technologies
If the Al-Musa could be said to have a signature technological innovation, it was their 360-degree rotating laser ring mounts — a design born from necessity during the Caravan Wars, when raiders attacked from all directions across the shifting sands. Mounted on everything from wheeled sand crawlers to infantry barricades, these weapons could pivot instantly to track incoming threats, giving Al-Musa defenders unparalleled battlefield awareness.
A particularly famous example was the Gun Tower of Shai’Laan, a fortified watchtower equipped with a prototype quad-ring mount capable of independent target acquisition. According to surviving oral accounts, the tower held off seven full Q’Kwagat assault waves, its defenders rotating the rings manually after the auto-systems burned out. When the tower finally fell, it wasn’t to enemy fire, but to an internal feud — two gunners from rival tribes turned the rings on each other, reducing the tower to slag.
This distrust — even at the height of technological innovation — was the Al-Musa’s greatest paradox. Each tribe hoarded its innovations like sacred relics, refusing to share even life-saving advancements with neighboring tribes. This technological isolationism ultimately stunted their development — and perhaps explains why no other species ever adopted their brilliant ring-mount designs.
In the end, the story of the Al-Musa is not just one of war and survival — it is a tale of a people who, even at their most powerful, could never truly trust each other, much less the galaxy around them. And perhaps, in that, there is a lesson for all of us.
Al Musa
Capital Merin Starsystem
Trade Hub Ak Al Starsystem
Temple Akad 5World
Official
Languages
Musa (multiple dialects)
Common Trade Speech
Ethnic Groups Human Radnian
Religion
Deism, Animism,
Cavolism
Government
Tribal
Legislature
Upper house: Kuftra
Lower house: Brethren Chiefs
Number of
Starsystems 35,852,944
Currency
Filo, Keshel, Radma
