The Nechota are a sinister race, extreme racists who believe that everyone else should serve them either as slaves or as food. Several centuries ago the race was struck by a genetic disease called the Nechota Plague. The disease proved incurable, and only the scientist Ne-Kata-Zo managed to invent a cure for it. The cure involved injecting a large dose of medication that caused the death of part of the brain. Typically the parts of the brain responsible for empathy and feeling were affected. Now all Nechota undergo this procedure upon reaching the age of 14, which renders the race completely insensitive to the suffering of others. This is in large part why the dominant ideology of the race is the ideology of Nechota racism. The race frequently wages destructive wars against its neighbors in order to expand its living space. The fate of the defeated is to become either slaves or food. The Nechota not infrequently eat their defeated enemies for ritual purposes. The race itself is egg-laying, reproducing one or two times a year. Nechota hatchlings fight one another after hatching and eat the weakest, so that a clutch of 30 eggs usually leaves only one or two survivors.
It is hard to imagine a more depressing society than that of this race. They have no entertainment and no sport; everything is subordinated to the harsh logic of expansion and survival. The Nechota are capable of settling even worlds completely unsuited for habitation; their house-settlements can be found on airless moons and on planets with poisonous atmospheres alike. The race's family structure is based on house-settlements, each of which represents a separate small community in which full authority belongs to the zil — the head of the house-settlement. During the mating season he is responsible for the exchange of females with other settlements; in other seasons, for the functioning of the settlement and the payment of dues to the empire. A due may consist of handing over certain resources or recruits to the authorities. Nechota females are effectively deprived of personhood and belong to the house-settlement, with no right to leave it without the Zil's permission. Nechota emperors hold absolute power and are something akin to demigods. The army answers directly to the emperor.
Most Nechota face a rather bleak life: hours of daily labor or service in the army, which does not even end with death — if a Nechota dies of anything other than disease or old age, he is turned into a cyborg capable of performing the simplest actions; such cyborgs serve in suicide units in the army or as living machines in factories. They are easy to tell apart by skin color — cyborgs have brown skin. Production of such cyborgs is the responsibility of a separate caste within Nechota society, known as necromancers.
Another lower caste are the Unclean — those rejected by Nechota society who lead a life scarcely better than that of slaves. Deserters fall into the Unclean, with the curse passed down by inheritance, as do traitors and the children of traitors. It is impossible to change one's status.
The most widespread religion is belief in the Forefathers — a cult of ancestors.
It is worth noting the Nechota's traditional sculpture. For warlords and emperors, it is considered a great honor to be immortalized in the form of large statues made from the skulls of enemies. Such statues can be seen near many of their cities, and their purpose is to strike terror into their enemies.
