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| - The Ahhc are one of the most tragic stories of the Kyklos Galaxy. Once a great and proud people, they prided themselves on their life support systems; not ones for combat, they remained neutral between the many warring factions, selling their life support systems to any faction that requested them as they believed every race deserved to live. While they did not aid the Chaos Legions (which would have simply absorbed them anyway), they actively sought to find a cure for the ailment that infected its many races, seeing the diimonic mutations as a form of mutagenic disease which they dubbed the "Transmogrific Virus". While they stated that they were on to something with their viral experiments, tragedy struck - the immune systems of their race was suddenly and drastically compromised. At first it was not noticed, and the sickness that spread seemed like a horrible but natural occurrence. As the mortality rates climbed and reached pandemic levels, however, the Ahhc began to panic. They frantically sought a cure for themselves and when a cure did not come, they instead moved on to finding a way to merely survive, hoping that if they could at least survive they could eventually find a cure to end their sickness - this survival method took the form of life support harnesses, small life support systems that aided them in movement as their limbs grew weaker and weaker and held them aloft when they ceased to reach adulthood, all the while prolonging what would otherwise be a short and gruesome existence. Now the Ahhc survive only by their life support harnesses, which keep them alive by "purifying" their blood stream using nanotechnology, alkaloidic silver, heat and various other properties including but not limited to liquid mercury. It is a painful process and only just works, but they continue to thwart extinction. Most of them have paled skin and cloudy eyes due to the most prolific disease that has come to affect their kind; however, this is far from the only look for them. Some known diseases to affect them are highly similar to the Earth's harlequin-type ichthyosis and elephantiasis. Another disease that affects them as a whole prevents them from sexually maturing, leaving them in their fetal state forever; to combat this they have developed a sort of artificial neoteny, with their life support harnesses taking their DNA when necessary and mixing it with that of another of the opposing gender, combining them in a processing vat to give birth to a new member. There is no longer any celebration at the creation of new Ahhc life, as they see it as almost a curse, due to the suffering the young ones will have to endure over their lifetimes; more often than not they "celebrate" instead through a more funeral-like mourning period. It is widely assumed that the Ciitarkians had a hand in the sudden loss of the Ahhc immune system, due to their having performed several other horrible and similar experiments on other races (such as destroying the Snapdragon's homeworld and only colony to see how the peaceful giants would react to such a tragedy). However, no direct correlation between the Ahhc tragedy and the Ciitarkians has ever come to light.
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