The Net’hret are an intelligent, technologically advanced interstellar people whose large, powerful humanoid bodies bear a single pair of enormous feathered wings. Their innate personal gravity control is a biological, Void-derived trait. Natural Void affinity makes them eligible to learn High Magic, while trained spellcasting requires its own study and practice.
Native to Aaru, the Net’hret possess dense musculature, robust skeletons and exceptionally resilient organs. Their strength, endurance and recovery support life under the homeworld's intense gravity. Their wings provide propulsion, steering and braking while innate gravity suppression removes the gravitational force acting upon the bearer.
This universal gravity trait is separate from an individual's Gift. Biological strength and durability remain active when gravity suppression is not in use. Nets are living organisms with substantial nutritional requirements and physical limits.
Net’hret society consists of independent planetary polities, system-states and small multi-system powers. Strong personalities and political rivalries produce recurring conflict among neighbours. Many Nets take part in piracy, while individuals vary widely in conduct and loyalties.
The ICSS deals with these states as separate political actors. Its laws and standing military provide the main external restraint on their expansion. No single government speaks for the species.
These states include Kheraset (capital: Akhet-Senu); Menkhara (capital: Nebwaset); Isether (capital: Per-Henu); Djeseret (capital: Khemut); Nebkhet (capital: Sutekhen); Sekharet (capital: Djeru); and Peresh (capital: Reshenu).
Earth, in the Sol System, lies within Nebkhet territory. Its Tier 1 human civilization remains under strict ICSS protection through the Giza Conventions.
Ra is the Net'hret language and the source of ancient Egyptian on Earth. The name Ra gave rise to the Egyptian r or ra, meaning 'mouth', 'utterance' or 'speech', and 'tongue' in the sense of a language. Humans adapted the spoken language through their own linguistic history.
The Net'hret have their own written language and do not use Egyptian hieroglyphs. They never passed their written language on to humans on Earth. Egyptian hieroglyphs were a human invention.
Research into their innate ability led the Net’hret to develop technological antigravity, which they traded with other interstellar societies. A shipboard generator suppresses gravity's effect on a conductive hull and connected conductive structures. Occupants and ordinary cargo are not automatically included.
Propulsion must support unsuppressed loads, accelerate the vessel and manage momentum. The technology supplies no inertial damping. Personal-scale generators are unavailable, and increasing hull size makes efficient suppression progressively harder.
Net’hret factions operate jump drives, use established gate routes and employ Void Drives. They do not construct interstellar gates. Access to a route therefore does not imply an ability to extend the network.
Only Net’hret factions, pirates and cultists operate Void Drives. Some Net’hret pirates fall within more than one of those communities. A drive requires an engineered warp system, sustained participation by a trained mage circle and specialists capable of maintaining the magical and technical interface.
Void Engineers undertake nearly ten Cycles of higher education alongside magical training. They need intimate knowledge of the machinery they handle. Innate gravity control and natural Void affinity confer neither that knowledge nor professional qualification.
A qualified engineer can restore familiar machinery instantly through High Magic, even without spare parts or surviving remains. The engineer must understand every component and its interactions, and the working must remain within their magical capacity. This expertise remains useful around conventional machinery as well as Void Drives.
Ancient Net’hret encounters contributed to human traditions of gods and angels. Different visitors and institutions acted for different reasons, and human cultures interpreted those contacts through their own histories.
At Giza, humans working with Net’hret assistance built the pyramids as experimental Void-based communications devices. They successfully transmitted faster than light, but their sponsors were uncertain of the system's stability and chose to risk Earth instead of Aaru.
ICSS intervention compelled withdrawal and produced the Giza Conventions' protections for primitive and uncontacted societies, including populations descended from offworld settlers. Actual technology was removed from the devices; the sponsors found no replacement test site and did not resume the program. The surviving stone structures do not provide functioning FTL communication.