Once upon a time, Sidius Luminae, the fifth planet in the Sidius solar system, represented the industrial heartland of the Seren Republic. A planet almost entirely made up of metals and metal ores of nearly every imaginable element - the result of an unexplainable cosmic event - Sidius 5 represented an unprecedented opportunity for both industrial production and scientific advancement, itself providing nearly the entire manufacturing output of the entire republic. With its surface literally covered with factories and artificial installations, the planet represented the Seren Repulic's most treasured possession.

It is no surprise, then, that when Cedric's Multidimensional Galactic Empire set its sights on Republic space, Sidius 5 was the first target that they struck. However, the planet's orbital defences and surface artillery proved too formidable for a surgical strike to be successful, transforming the invasion into a protracted siege that lasted for nearly ten years, outlasting the actual war by several times. Even if he couldn't take the actual planet, Cedric's blockade of it was just as effective at cutting the Seren from virtually their sole manufacturing installation, making for a quick and brutal victory. However, Sidius 5 still represented an enormous resource carche, so battle for it kept on raging against the stubborn defenders even at the astronomical cost to lives, vessels and money.

Eventually, the Sidius 5 defenders were starved out and annihilated, but by that time, the planet's surface had been transformed into a toxic hell. Cedric had applied every nuclear, chemical and biological weapon he had at his disposal, and the destroyed Sidius installations had leaked poisons and radiation over the entire planet. Once a thriving marvel of modern technology, Sidius was instead transformed into a toxic bog, constantly blanketed by an atmosphere of poisons and resistant pathogens hovering above oceans of corrosive, explosive chemicals.

The MGE did commit to a concerted effort to terraform the planet into a habitable environment in an attempt to continue mining its resources, but their efforts were proving inexplicably ineffective. No matter how much pollution was removed from the planet, the overall toxicity levels were only steadily increasing. Scientists attempted to remove hazardous materials off-world, to little effect. A gamma ray burst bomb was used to blow the planet's entire atmosphere of poison into space and kill all living pathogens, but even though that seemed to work at first, the planet's toxicity climbed back to record levels within a matter of days. It was almost as if the surface itself had become infected and was now secreting the poisons which choked the scientists.

After nearly 20 years of failed terraforming and a constantly worsening environmental situation, a final event took place to halt the entire effort of salvaging Sidius 5. A winged figure emerged from the smog and approached the MGE installation. It addressed the scientists within, ordering them off the planet and threatening doom if they failed to do so. Automatic mounted defences responded by shooting the figure to shreds, which proceeded to explode into a spray of hideously corrosive acid and a cloud or toxic fungus, which quickly spread to the surrounding area. Suddenly, the corpses of Sidius 5's original Seren Republic defenders, still lying about half-covered in infectious mud after nearly 30 years, reanimated. To the MGE scientists' horror, the planet's pollution had begin transforming dead bodies into semi-sentient, toxic and incredibly aggressive husks through a combination of mutant diseases, amazing biochemistry and unprecedented levels of radioactivity.

The husks overwhelmed most of the planet's facilities, overcoming mounted defences through sheer weight of numbers and burning their way through static fortifications through acid and chemical explosions. To MGE high command's shock, the fallen scientists were in turn transformed into husks, themselves, moving out to attack other facilities still holding out. It soon became clear that this was no random catastrophe, but a directed military assault, planned and overseen by a single sentient mind. The reappearance of the winged creature, now calling itself "Iprit" after the then-outmoded poison gas of the same name, only confirmed MGE fears. However, this time around, Iprit was not interested in evicting the scientists from its world, but instead told tales of "infecting" the universe and spreading like a "glorious plague."

The few surviving MGE teams evacuated the planet, and core-cracker bombs were deployed to destroy Sidius 5 in its entirety, thus ending the potential danger. Or so it was thought. But upon returning home, the surviving scientists fell violently ill, died within days and transformed into irradiated, poisonous incubators for an entire host of diseases that contemporary science had never even dreamt of. These turned into epidemics, which eventually overwhelmed multiple worlds, transforming their populations into literal diseased zombies and melting down artificial structures to produce a variety of unknown biochemicals. The epidemic could not be contained to the planets themselves, as well, as "infected" space-fairing vessels were soon seen leaving the hotzones. These vessels resembled conventional spacecraft overgrown with cancerous tissue.

The loss of an entire sector to the disease finally necessitated Lord Cedric's personal intervention. His superhuman powers had given him resistance to physical harm and immunity from all disease, so he alone could penetrate to the heart of the outbreak and personally put a stop to the plague. Or such was the plan. But instead of a hotbed of disease, what lay at the centre was a familiar figure - the winged, misshapen creature calling itself Iprit, the progenitor of this outbreak and the sentient mind behind its insidious spread. Though destroyed twice over at the time, the creature appeared able to regrow itself from its own toxic infection, seemingly without limitation. It did not take well to Cedric's incursion into its domain, and a battle ensued.

After a protracted struggle, costing the destruction of multiple planets and the "purging" of hundreds of others, neither side appeared able to gain a meaningful foothold. It was then that Iprit's true nature was revealed. Instead of carrying on an "unproductive" war, the creature instead offered a deal to Lord Cedric. They could choose to split the universe between each other and cooperate. Iprit would get to infect planets of little strategic importance, thus sowing destruction among Cedric's enemies, and Cedric would prevent the other sentient races from trying to develop antidotes to the creatures poisons and toxins, and would indeed halt his war on the worlds Iprit already owned. Ever the opportunist, Cedric seized the chance to acquire another powerful lieutenant by ensuring that he and he alone had the "cure" to Iprit's disease.

Since then, Iprit has served Lord Cedric entirely without question or disobedience, and indeed developed a morbid sense of humour about it, finding amusement in the death and defilement of others. The creature cares nothing for morality, ethics or even strategic goals above and beyond infecting as much volume of space as it can manage. If this means kowtowing to a megalomaniacal emperor, then that's a small price to pay, and a temporary one, as well. The worlds Iprit takes become unsalvagable. They cannot be cleaned, they cannot be saved, then can never be reinhabited. With every world it takes, with every years that passes, its poisons and toxins evolve. At this point, it is merely a matter of time until Iprit becomes too dangerous to control.

As to what created the creature, no-one seems to know, and Iprit himself has no interest in finding out. The reigning theory is that the amazing amount of radioactive debris, toxic and corrosive chemicals and engineered biological weapons pooled and melded together in so as to create sentient intelligence, which then grew to form a body and control the bodies of other dead sentient entities through telepathic fungi, it is believed. These days, Iprit just laughs it off in its gargling voice, saying that it's not creation but recreation it is interested in. The recreation of all living and unliving matter into more of itself.

Iprit is currently on Earth in an attempt to forward Cedric's plans for invasion. However, cut off from from its infected home base and devastated by dimension travel through our dimension's complex barriers has weakened the creature. Furthermore, Iprit's presence here appears to invalidate the presence of Cedric's other lieutenants, whose' job is to capture and not annihilate worlds and render them uninhabitable. It's not clear if Iprit is finally making a bid for independence, or if Cedric is looking to purge his roster, but what IS clear is that Earth is caught in the middle of this power struggle, and is a potential disaster.