The Relationship Between The Water & Darkness Civilizations
(the following is inferred from information given on the cards of the Duel Masters Trading Card Game)

The Darkness and Water Civilizations of Duel Masters are often brought together through similar research goals. Unlike the Light Civilization, whose research focuses more on programs and alloy technology, the Darkness specializes more in bioengineering, chemical effects, and psychological manipulation. Due to the nature of the Darkness Civilization's 'citizens', and the Dark Lords' willingness to conduct inhumane experiments in their research, their advancement in such fields can sometimes be ahead of the Water Civilization.

The Dark Lords and Cyber Lords get along quite well, despite the wweakness of the Cyber Lords in combat related activities. If one thing could be said about their overall relationship, it would be called a state of 'friendly mistrust'. The Cyber Lords send Cyber Viruses and other such creatures as spies into the Darkness realm to discover what new research the Dark Lords are hiding from them, and the Dark Lords, in turn, extort information from the Cyber Lords through subtle, vague, or implied threats.

The Water Civilization had little or no involvement in the initial invasion of the Fiona Woods, other than cleaning up stragglers or disrupting Nature's troop movements through their teleportation technologies, and even then, it was done under the premise of keeping the conflict contained. Water's forces at the time would have been in great danger on such a battlefield, and under the immense gravity in the Nature lands. With no interest in those territories, and no promise of help from the Dark Lords in their own campaign against the Fire Civilization, the Cyber Lords had no reason to help beyond that.

When the surviving Nature Folk managed to gather hope again, after the initial invasion, and call upon the Light Civilization for help in expelling the fetid Darkness from their lands, the Cyber Lords found themselves in a delicate situation. To side with either the Light or the Darkness was sure to bring some sort of retribution from the other. Furthermore, refusing to help either would lead to questions. The sort of questions that would in turn, lead to suspicion. Under the leadership of Aquan in the matter, the Cyber Lords took a bold option, based on the fact that the chances of any communication or peace talks between the Light and Darkness were slim to none.

They would offer the exact same level of support to both of their warring allies at all times, and use their own skill at information control to hide this. Since the Water Civilization itself was the main means by which either the Darkness or the Light could spy on the other, and troop movements and battle plans would be kept top secret as much as possible, it seemed to be the best plan for the situation, and was approved by the other Cyber Lords almost immediately. It did work out relatively well in the end. When the Dark Lords finally did discover this, it was mostly laughed off as devious trickery rather than outright treachery. Especially since it was almost exacly what they would have done, if placed in the same situation.

The Dark Lords were reluctant to share their findings after this, and their efforts focused more on making up for the loss of the Demon Command Ballom. The Cyber Lords mostly ignored this, moving on with their own plans, still aiding, and accepting aid from, the Darkness Civilization, when anything required conflict with Nature's forces. As the Dragons awoke, bringing new strange events, and massive devastation, to the lands, communications between the Water and Darkness civilizations lessened. Priorities were on other things.

It was the shattering of the rainbow that brought Water and Darkness together again. Liquid People and Ghosts were united, creating beings of immense value to the research of both the Dark and Cyber Lords. So naturally powerful were these Liquid Ghost hybrids that they did not even bother to spend time trying to improve upon them, simply worked on methods of reproducing the process. In so doing, they also learnt of the Spirit Quartz, and of ways for the Darkness to infuse their water allies with the powerful final psychic assault that would slay any foe who happened to defeat them.

Continued research also allowed the Lords to combine their magical technologies, creating hybrid effects unlike anything ever before encountered. Soon, their research branged into two very strange, sinister directions. The Cyber Lords aimed to harness the dark powers of Hedrians, specifically that of the Battleship Mutant, to give themselves power in combat. The Dark Lords began their Chimera experiments with new 'base materials'. Namely, the Merfolk that roamed the seas, occasionally causing 'trouble' for the Cyber Lords, and who the Cyber Lords, in turn, had no qualms about 'sacrificing' to dark experiments.

The results in both cases were successful. The Cyber Lords did learn how to fuse themselves into Hedrians, gaining power. The Dark Lords were frighteningly 'more' successful. The creature they created was no mere Chimera. Its power and intelligence surpassed or at least rivaled anything they had ever created before. This creature, upon awakening into sentience, proclaimed itself the Avatar of Fate... and declared the beginning of a new era in history...