Technarchy
The Technarchy are an alien race that feature in Marvel Comics.
Contents |
History
The Technarchy was the term given to a galactic machine society with them being said to be an artificial collective intelligence manufactured by a greater society that were the Phalanx. (Powers of X v1 #2) After their creation, their civilization came to call the Kvch system their home. (Quasar v1 #8) Some accounts claimed that not only was it the home of the Technarchy but also the birthplace of the Phalanx (Nova v1 #9). In reality, the Technarch were simply creations of the Phalanx who tasked them with the removal and repurposing of other societies. (Powers of X v1 #2) For eon's, the Technarchs had plundered galaxies where they fed on the Lifeglow wherever they could find it. (Nova v4 #11) For centuries, knowledge of Kvch was lost to the wider galaxy with many unaware of its location in the galaxy. (Nova v1 #9)
The leader of the Technarchy namely the Magus came to fear being supplanted by his offspring. Thus, as was customary of his race, he fought each child upon its emergence and destroyed each of them. This was until one named Warlock decided to flee into space with his parent in pursuit. (New Mutants v1 #21) For an unrevealed period of time Magus kept chasing his son through the cosmos, enjoying the hunt as he went along. When he located Warlock on a planet in a remote star system, he decided to announce his presence by growing large enough to rip the sun in half and throw part of the dying star at his son who spotted his gigantic father in the sky. The planet was destroyed, but Warlock escaped so they could continue the hunt. With a grin, Magus assured his fleeing son he would face him in the end and then he would take the life he had given him. (New Mutants v1 #18) Magus and Warlock's cat and mouse game across space brought them close to the Starjammers. The band of freebooters were astonished when their ship's instruments picked up two unique energy signatures. While Warlock's energy potential was deemed a match for the Starjammer itself, they were stunned to find Magus' power eclipsed those readings. They were fearful for their friends on Earth when the ship's major domo Waldo concluded the two unknown entities were on a direct course for the Sol system. (New Mutants v1 #19) Desperate and tired, Warlock spotted Earth and decided to hide there to replenish his energies. He accidentally crashed into Asteroid M, destroying Magneto's base and forcing the master of magnetism to scramble to Earth. Warlock eventually reached Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, seemingly drawn towards it because of the unique energy signature given off by the school's Shi'ar based equipment. He eventually befriended the New Mutants and their mentor Charles Xavier, telling them of his past and the coming of the Magus. (New Mutants v1 #21)
Magus finally tracked down his son to Earth, homing in on his lifesigns the drained and tired Magus crashed in the woods near the X-Men's headquarters. His arrival, signaled by a bright light, was witnessed by Colossus, Nightcrawler and Rogue who were in the middle of an impromptu late night outside training session. Desperate to restore his energy resources, Magus used his transmode virus to infect and drain a tree and a deer. When the X-Men spotted their metal, lifeless husks they figured out they were dealing with the Magus that Warlock had been warning them about. Rogue flew ahead to an abandoned mansion where she briefly tussled with their techno-organic quarry. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #192)
Despite his defeat, the Magus managed to restore himself back to his full form after his body developed an immunity to the infected cells introduced to him by his son. He later happened upon a world whose populace gratefully accepted the infection of the Space Phalanx but were unaware of the Phalanx Imperative that caused the populace to form a tower to summon the Technarchs. Whilst destroying a Phalanx infested world, he received a signal from another source of Phalanx infection and determined that it was from Earth. He made his way to the planet which had purged the Phalanx infection but the Magus sought to destroy it and his son who had merged with his friend Cypher into a hybrid form. Despite Douglock's resistance, he was unable to initially defeat the Magus but with the support of his friends he introduced a corruption into the Magus forcing the Technarch to flee Earth in order to rid himself of the spread occurring through his body. (Warlock v5 #9)
After the Magus failed to return to the Technarchy homeworld due to the failure in confronting his son, the other Technarchs Siredams abandoned their planet of Kvch in order to go about their separate ways. Whilst they are highly intelligent beings, some of their number were driven into a feral state where they did nothing more then consume entire planets of their Lifeglow and grow into titanic beasts that prowled the heavens.
Magus returned to Kvch to rid himself of the virus that had been afflicting him and thus reboot his systems. However, it managed to spread to the rest of the planet and devastated it leaving Kvch a dead world with only a handful of Technarch survivors. (All-New X-Factor v1 #6) Thus, the Technarch homeworld became a near dead planet with few signs of life on its surface and even their kind's breeding rates that alarmingly declined. As a result, the mature Technarchs had long ago departed it in their search for Lifeglow. These adult members of the Technarchy would become bloated in their feedings and roam through deep space whilst leaving their young on their homeworld to develop. On Terraearth, Warlock learnt much from his bondfriends and decided to impart these qualities among his people. Thus, he departed for his home planet of Kvch in order to embark on the difficult task of saving his people from themselves. He intended to break the his species destructive cycle and thus redeem his stagnating people. (Nova v4 #11)
Meanwhile, the Magus after his confrontation with the X-Men was left at the bottom of the sea where he reverted to his nascent form. The Technarch stayed there for a very long time where his body continued to grow, evolve and replicate though was dormant. A restored Bastion came to uncover the existence of the techno-organic being and led the Purifiers in a submarine to the create where he awoke it using the codeword 'Warlock' with him intending to use the Technarchy in a war against Mutants. (X-Force v3 #2) In reality, the techno-organic being was simply a mindless offspring of the Magus whose programming was commandeered for Bastion's purposes. He had the being infect the remains of Cameron Hodge, Steven Lang, Bolivar Trask, Graydon Creed and Reverend William Stryker who were all resurrected through the Technarch transmode virus. In addition, Donald Pierce and the Leper Queen was similarly transformed into a partially techno-organic being where they joined the resurrected as members of the Human High Council who were to be the future of the human race and the end of Mutantkind. (X-Force v3 #3)
Eli Bard who was a secret servant of the External Selene came to use the Technarch spawn to resurrect the corpses of Caliban and Warpath's massacred tribe. (X-Force v3 #10)
A tenth of the Technarch survived with the Magus looking to aid in his race's continued survival. Magus eventually awoke from his hibernation in a decidedly different state. Now no longer ruled by his species' genetic desire to kill his offspring, he sought out and made amends with Warlock who came to work for him in a new information technologies company called Techno, Inc. where the Magus operated as Lemar Smaug with the business being based outside of Houston, Texas. Magus' company soon became the bitter rival of Serval Industries. The company's president Harry Snow eventually sent in X-Factor, a team of mutants on the company payroll, to investigate his competitor. X-Factor was understandably shocked to find 'Lemar Smaug' was actually the Magus and they were even more stunned to learn Warlock was now happily working with his father. X-Factor was summarily booted out. (All-New X-Factor v1 #5) Magus was disappointed in his son when X-Factor returned with the newly revived Doug Ramsey in an attempt to free Warlock from his father's perceived influence. Seeing his old friend made Warlock harken back to their days as superheroes, that and the fact he'd become infatuated with X-Factor's Danger, made him resign his commission. Though Magus was initially furious, he quickly accepted his son's choices and allowed X-Factor and the others to leave. Figuring Magus technically had not committed any crimes or was at fault in any way, all the humans who worked for him did so willingly, X-Factor left the techno-organic former monarch to his own devices. (All-New X-Factor v1 #6)
Overview
The physical appearance of members of the Technarchy somewhat varies due to the fact that they were shape shifters who were able to alter their size, shape, skin pigmentation, mass and even form depending on their wishes. This made them all unique though their techno-organic nature meant that their bodies resembled metal with organic bodies that had machinery or circuitry dotting its surface. Their typical skin colour was jet black with yellow or gold machines resembling strips.
Their bodies were composed of living circuitry. (New Mutants v1 #47) As a mechano-organic species, they possessed the ability to transform their mesomorphy, alter their mass and transmit energy. (Quasar v1 #8) The techno-organic cells in their body allowed them to achieve feats such as moving through molecules. (Warlock v5 #8) Technarchs were said to possess no weaknesses or rather they could rapidly shift their forms so that any weaknesses were no longer present in them. This represented a state of pure chaos that served as their greatest strength. Typically, they were noted for being highly intelligent. These entities could launch informational attacks where they bombarded others with images and sounds that were perceptive data emotions. Young Technarchs could download wireless transmissions in order to learn about a respective world before emerging into an adult state. (Monsters Unleashed v3 #11)
Notable abilities of a Technarch are related to that of the Techno-organic virus which they are carriers to allowing them to infect other organisms thus turning them into similar beings which a Technarch can absorb in order to gain nourishment through that life energy. In addition, they are able to evolve throughout their lives allowing them to increase their strength, size and even gain additional abilities across their lifespan. They typically have energy channeling abilities though the limits of this are not known. What is known is that they have the power to travel through hyperspace, cross dimensional barriers, detection of energy sources from dimensional and across interstellar distances, detect mental ability, detect lifeglow, fuse hydrogen, communicate through a different ways, ability to interface with technology as well as a number of other unexplored abilities.
Typically, they existed as a singular node normally taking the form of a planet or other planetary body which was called a Kvch. From there, an alpha intelligence took dominance that became known as the Magus. Each of their kind believed they were the only Technarch in existence with the species being invisible to each other. (Powers of X v1 #2) A Technarch as powerful as Magus claimed that he was capable of tearing apart the star of the Sol system with his bare hands. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #192) Such was their power that they could pose as an extinction-level threat to a world. (Monsters Unleashed v3 #11)
Despite their organic qualities, Technarch reproduction was more akin to machines with it being handled in an advanced assembly line with the genome from a "parent" being used in the process. The race are asexual thus possess no genders but the parents are typically referred to as "siredams"; sire for father and dam for mother. Despite this being the case, Humans tend to refer members of the Technarchy as males. The "children" are brought up in a creche and when they reach a certain age they are required to fight their parent in single combat in order to determine if they have the right to live. Through this process, the weak are killed whilst the strong kill their parent.
Members of the Technarchy sought out organic bioforms with lifescans determining their value as sustenance. Through touch, such individuals were infected with the genetic transmode virus who were thus transformed into techno-organic beings. In an instant later, they were drained of their lifeglow with a complete consumption leaving the targets as dust. (New Mutants v1 #47)
Violence was seen as being endemic of their society. Technarch credo taught their people to seek out Lifeglow and drain it. (Nova v4 #11) For million's of generations, members of the Technarchy obeyed two simple biological urges namely to feed and to breed. These adult specimens would plunder the space ways and become bloated on the Lifeglow they stalked from their prey. The siredams would only ever return to their home planet to challenge the juvenile Technarch in a fight to the death with only one being given the right to life. (Nova v4 #12)
Their species were noted for being capable of asexual self-replication as a means of reproduction. (New Mutants v3 #9)
Young members of the species are also noted for piloting massive mechas called Technarch Warmechs. In these large war machines, a young Technarch is trained for the day they must fight their Siredam to the death for the right to live. The war mechs were noted as being incredibly powerful and large in size.
Members
- Magus :
- Warlock :
- Tyro : a young Technarch who was left abandoned on Kvch who was adopted as a son by Warlock when he tried to reform his people and gave him a non-aggressive version of the Transmode Virus. (Nova v4 #11)
- Egg : an infantile Technarch that was launched towards Earth where he landed on the Moon leading to an encounter with the Inhumans and saved by Kid Kaiju. (Monsters Unleashed v3 #11)
Notes
- The Technarchy were created by Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz where they made their first appearance in New Mutants v1 #18 (August, 1984).
- A revised origin for the Technarchs was presented in Powers of X v1 #2 (2019).
In other media
Television
- In X-Men: The Animated Series, Warlock made an appearance in the setting of the animated television series in the episode "Phalanx Covenant". This version was not identified as a Technarch but rather as the Phalanx. He came along with his lifemate where the two crashed on Earth. Warlock himself managed to escape but his lifemate was captured by human forces led by Cameron Hodge experiment on her leading to the creation of the Phalanx infection.
Appearances
- New Mutants v1: (1984)
- Uncanny X-Men v1: #192
- Nova v4:
- X-Force v3:
- All-New X-Factor v1:
- Monsters Unleashed v3:
- Powers of X v1:
External Link
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