Wielders, Dark Technology, and What We Know...

What can be said of the Wielders is extremely small. Primarily due to the fact that almost all information available on them was made available through the Redeemers, who seemed particularly fascinated with their work.

The Redeemers were not able to accurately date the Wielder civilization. Namely that it had faded into obscurity by their time. Given the fall of the Redeemer civilization approximately nine-thousand years ago by the Hive, their most conservative estimates place a tentative beginning of the Wielder civilization to approximately fifty-seven thousand years ago. The Redeemers also believed that the culmination of their civilization must have taken an incredibly long period of time, given the spread of their artifacts and presence in the galaxy. The Redeemers suspected that the Wielder civilization could be no younger than thirty-thousand years old by the time it began to fade into obscurity.

Many of these numbers have been scrutinized, but nothing resembling an authoritative correction has ever been made. Many of the technological components from irretrievable artifacts back up this timeline. Though not enough have been compromised to provide particularly useful data points in any given point along the span.

None today are able to discern the Wielder language, only the raw, quantifiable logic in their programs - if that. The Redeemers seemed to have the ability to translate, very roughly, certain parts of Wielder language. But even they struggled with the task.

What can be gleaned from the Wielders from what they left behind was that they were bipedal, with six limbs, a head centered with six eyes, a large cranium, four pointed ears, and a long-thin tail. All of their ornamentation has primarily been done in red or orange, for reasons not presently understood. Metal and unfinished surfaces tend to be a deep grey or black.

Wielder technology and Redeemer technology share a great deal of similarity. And often it is not too different from our own today. Some bits might be more advanced, and some bits might be more primitive. It's sufficient to say that in their own time, the Wielders had mastered FTL travel - the first people we know of to do so - and were principle hegemons of their time.  This feature is what gives the modern, anthrocentric Hegemony its name and visual style.

The illusive mystery that remains at the fore of the Wielders is that of the Dark Technology they mastered. Named for its use of processes that are not fully understood; either incorporating dark-matter, or black holes. The prior being used for most tools and personal implements, while the latter is respectively limited to their archetypical Dark Gates. The equivalent of modern Event-Gates for FTL travel, but their own being vastly superior. Their proximity to Black Holes prevents them from being moved, or rigorously studied.

The Dark Technology that the Wielders have left behind is largely considered by most to be extremely dangerous, with exception only given to their Dark Gates, which function reliably despite the thousands of years. Dark technology in the form of tools, weapons, armor, utility items, or so must be passed under a commonly accessible Redeemer subroutine, which can attempt to determine if an artifact is safe - or make it so. About thirty-five percent of items that are run through this subroutine pass, and are safe to use.

The other sixty-five percent are identified as Corrupted, or sometimes called Cursed in common parlance. In all actuality, it's unlikely that they are truly corrupted, or made inoperable; it is instead just the literal translation that the Redeemers left behind. These items can still be used by a person in most cases, but they will always inflict some sort of side-effect. From trivial, to utterly severe. Sometimes such appear over time, and are reversible. Other times they appear instantly, and are irreversible. And any possible combination in between.

Still, the allure of Dark technology, namely Dark Weapons, Dark Armor, and Dark Implants, lure many enterprising travelers of the galaxy to give them a try. Despite the risk of peril, and common tales of lives lost to these things.