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Greetings, fellow space engineers. Tortoise Clan: Office of Strategic Services has toiled endlessly and sacrificed much to make the following information public to the citizens of our galaxy. While space engineers accept the brutal hazards of galactic colonization, few are prepared for the greater horrors that seek to destroy everything we hold true.

Our mission is to spread knowledge and information about the most aggressive and destructive obstacles known to our black operations, so that peaceful colonization and commerce of our galaxy may continue far into the future.

The Elemental Clans, as identified by Tortoise Clan: OSS, consist of at least three major threats: Void Clan, Fire Clan, and Metal Clan. The following document focuses on what information has been declassified regarding Fire Clan. To survive an encounter with this foe, knowledge and wisdom of their habitats and behaviors are necessary.

Take heed and learn what can be learned about this xenophobic alien terror, before space engineering efforts in the region of the galaxy you hold most dear are lost forever!


Fire Clan are a species of super intelligent, extremophile bacteria. They exist as a continuous swarm of single-celled organisms which can communicate over seemingly great distances through micro vibrations in the electromagnetic spectrum. They appear to have a general goal of spreading to large rocky bodies with atmospheres, converting chemicals in rock and gas into food and fuel, and self-propelling themselves to new habitats.

Nearly all organic matter can be consumed by Fire Clan as food. Nearly all metallic matter can be converted into machinery by Fire Clan. Whether it be food or fuel, Fire Clan creates all chemical change through extreme heat.

Wherever the Fire Clan organisms spread, there will be fire.

Entire planets have been laid to waste in months, with entire surfaces reduced to ash, and atmospheres converted into toxic gases. Some planets have been stripped of atmosphere entirely, existing now as gigantic tombstones for the civilizations which once thrived in its valleys and forests.

Worse yet, Fire Clan are great makers of war. Their collective intelligence possess an astounding memory, incomprehensible to species such as Human or Jupiterian. They are hundreds of millions of years in age, and can create machinery of significant complexity. Through their encounters with other intelligent aliens, they have learned to turn their interplanetary travel devices into machines of war.

Space engineers throughout the galaxy are advised to prepare for war!

Fire Clan are a super-intelligent, extremophile, decentralized collective of single-celled organisms. The collective typically favors warm planetary atmospheres, similar to those of planet Earth. They can use starlight for energy, but prefer to break down and consume stone and similar planetary materials.


Fire Clan has existed for hundreds of millions of years. Their origins are currently unknown, though TC: OSS is certain they originate from the opposite side of the galaxy from planet Earth and the Sol system.

Each single celled organism is able to adapt its genetic code to current adversarial conditions, and pass successful adaptations on to future generations. Each cell can copy itself so long as it has a supply of food and warm temperature, and a single cell can eventually produce an entire colony.

Initial growth is small and slow, typically remaining invisible to the world of multicellular organisms. In this time Fire Clan can engineer machinery and tools to advance their future agenda - escape from a planet - undetected by the many civilizations which may be inhabiting the planet at the time.

Once a colony has reached significant size, it will either produce machines to harvest the planetary atmosphere, or to first destroy any other organisms occupying it. Fire Clan colonies will deliberately engage opposition to their goals, even when the current portion of the swarm will perish in the attempt, in order to communicate learnings back to the local planetary bacterial host colony.

Fire Clan does not need to succeed in material conflict in order to survive, as time is on their side. Cataclysmic events which typically destroy planets can also allow fire clan to cling to remaining asteroid particles. There they can remain in cold, dark space for hundreds of thousands of years, waiting to be pulled towards another planet's gravity well.

Likewise, Fire Clan may arrive on any planet through comets, meteorites, or even on the hulls of ships piloted by unsuspecting space engineers.


A single cell may last hundreds of thousands of years, or a few days, depending on its purpose for the colony. A single cell can create infinite copies of itself, assuming there is a local supply of minerals and heat.

A single cell cannot move, but a grouping of at least 6 members can form themselves and move like a microscopic wheel, albeit in a worm-like fashion.

Cells can be recycled for food or energy, or "sacrificed" in combat to advance the agenda of the greater colony.

Few things kill a Fire Clan cell other than extreme cosmic events, unfathomably high pressures, or localized nuclear fission and fusion.

They can choose to become dormant, and exist in the deepest regions of space for hundreds of years, surviving absolute zero temperatures. They can survive intense radiation, the pressures of colliding planets and moons, and have no known diseases or viral vulnerabilities. They can use asteroids as transports to new worlds, and have no knowledge or sense of time.

After nearly one million years, a cell's ability to copy itself without transcription errors decreases, and the colony typically recycles the cell body for food.

Tortoise Clan: Office of Strategic Services has entertained the idea that the species cannot be killed without such a cosmic event that would also destroy all matter in the galaxy. Their populations can be reduced via direct combat, even pushed to the brink of apparent extinction. Unfortunately there always remains a few cells which can hide deep in the bedrock of a planet for centuries, healing, multiplying, teaching its clones of the previous war, and devising a strategy for their next rising. They may reappear in weeks, months, years, or centuries, depending on many conditions.


Fire Clan can communicate across electro-magnetic frequencies typically invisible to most multicellular organisms, which can provide intelligence between colonies at sub light speeds. It is unknown how great of a distance this communication can travel, but TC: OSS can confirm this can take place between planets. It is suspected that Fire Clan can devise machinery to amplify their communications between star systems, if left to become powerful enough to do so.

This species possess a collective history. Since the birth period of the second generation of stars, they have learned ways to utilize planetary atmospheres to facilitate their movement between planets, and even to new star systems. Gasses commonly found in atmospheres can be converted into both foods and fuels, and their technology utilizes atmospheric gasses to allow for greater mobility than moving a colony swarm across a planetary surface.

For this reason, Fire Clan will aggressively dominate any atmosphere where their colony has reached a significant size. They believe it is their gateway between planets and stars.

Most importantly, they remember their ventures in warfare. They fight relentlessly and without any regard for life, their own, or that of their foes. They consider any encounter a victory where they can extract new tactical information and provide it to the hidden host colony. They will meet any opposition with aggression, and increase their efforts wherever acquisition of resources is simple or necessary.

Fire Clan have evolved to become great masters of warfare. They can adapt to any new opposition, and given that time is on their side, will eventually produce tactics that overcome their foes. At least, this understanding is encoded into their collective DNA, in reality, it is possible to achieve victory in war against Fire Clan.

Their machinery favors the sky, although planetary surfaces can occasionally exhibit installations which assist in advancing a local goal for the collective swarm. Their style of combat seems to prefer large host vessels which can produce a large quantity of smaller attack vehicles. They typically prefer to engage from long distances, and utilize explosive ordinance at exposed targets. Their tactics are swift and decisive, and resemble the Earthen cultures of Berserker and Kamikazi cults. Fire Clan does not comprehend emotions, let alone fear.


Fire Clan have learned to manipulate the physical properties of the universe in their favor. Over millions of years, they have learned how to take possession of larger bodies of machines in order to pilot them towards their goals.

As Fire Clan have encountered many alien species in their existence, they have learned much from millions of years of combat and war.

They typically will create a small colony inside of a central control block inside of a vehicle. If this central control block is destroyed, approx. 99% of the cells in the immediate colony are destroyed. This renders the vehicle useless, effectively killing the aggressive combatant.

This tactic can be repeated for any piece of Fire Clan machinery - destroy its central control block, and the organisms inside the vehicle are killed along with it.


Fire Clan will primarily seek to dominate atmospheres. Given their need for heat to become mobile, they are rarely, if ever, observed operating in space, except when moving to a new host planet. While their colonies begin and reproduce below planetary surfaces, their operations maintain a constant air presence.

Air superiority is their ultimate goal in planetary domination. What follows after is total carbonization of the planetary surface, and eventual destruction of the atmosphere. They dominate the sky with large vehicles which contain many sub-swarms of smaller vehicles, each with destructive ballistic weapons.

Additionally, Fire Clan will use smaller swarms of vehicles to perform tactical strikes on weak ground targets. This can be accompanied by similar strikes on larger strategic targets from extremely high distances in the atmosphere.

A major Fire Clan encounter will contain all these elements - large ships fighting at a distance with swarms of smaller fighters, tactical ground strikes, and strategic bomb strikes. Defenders will need to master multi vector attack patterns to hold Fire Clan at bay.


Fire Clan will typically make few visible surface installations on planets. Occasionally they create temporary food storage units, refueling stations, or energy processing plants. They typically see ground installations as too vulnerable, and will not invest in them at the same level as their atmospheric dominance.


While it may be impossible to completely destroy the species on a planet, they can be reduced to small numbers and held there with intention.

When Fire Clan is first encountered on a planet, they have already gained a great amount of strength and power. They do not need to aggressively confront new entities at this time, and rarely devote energy to combat.

Once any space engineer operations begin to interfere with Fire Clan's goals, they will turn their attention to warfare on the planet. After a period of defeating many battles, an entire colony may rise to attack the local region.

If the vehicle commanding the battlefield is disabled or destroyed, Fire Clan will typically recognize the local region as too expensive to engage with, and move away for a significant period of time.

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🎮 Click here to view the Fire Clan NPC mod in the steam workshop!