Unbound

"We are one with our vessels, as was your S'jet persona. We are Unbound." — Bentusi

Unbound is a term used by the Bentusi to describe persons or races that were directly connected with their ships. Karan S'jet was the first person of the Kushan race who was connected with a mothership, thanks to cybernetic implants. Another known Unbound was the Vaygr warlord Makaan, using his connection with the Third Hyperspace Core to bring the myriad Vaygr Crusades under his command and begin the Vaygr War. Every single Bentusi was also connected with their ship.

In general, due to their direct connections with their ships Unbound are able to control ships by direct thought. This allows for extremely quick reactions to situations and far more lean crew counts, as much fewer administrative/command staff are required to perform the same operations. They also are known to have significantly longer than average lifespans; by Homeworld 2 Karan S'jet, the very same ship commander from the original Homeworld, is well over a century old which is far beyond the average Hiigaran lifespan, and she is still alive even by the time of Homeworld 3, yet another full century later. The Bentusi also refer to non-Unbound beings having "flicker lives" akin to a brief flicker of a candle compared to their own, which also corresponds to a relatively dismissive attitude to their importance or ability to see large-scale issues in the universe.

In the Age of S'jet, the Hiigarans developed their own term for the Unbound, refering to them as Navigators. For its first century, Karan was the only known Navigator left in the galaxy, until she discovered the existence of the Incarnate Queen in the Anomaly. Imogen, her protegé, became the third Hiigaran Navigator.

Beast Infection

"The Devourer does not kill us when it tries to take our ships. It leaves us in place, but corrupts our being. We die, but we are not dead. We would be trapped, slaves in our own bodies, eternally." — Bentusi, about the Beast

The Beast did not kill Unbound, as it did life forms of other races. Instead, an Unbound body was covered with Beast cells, and its links with its ship were broken. Unbound become Bound again with no way to escape, communicate or even kill themselves. For the Bentusi, becoming Bound was a fate more horrible than death, evidenced by the fact that they would choose to destroy themselves and their own ships rather than become bound by The Beast in the Aiowa system.

Known Unbound

Bentusi

• All of them.
• Bentus

Hiigaran

• Karan S'jet
• Imogen S'jet
• Tyrra Soban

Incarnate

• Tiaa'Ma

Taiidan

• Riesstiu IV the Second

Vaygr

• Makaan

Trivia

• The word "Unbound" was used only once in Homeworld: however, it was used several times in Homeworld: Cataclysm, including the definition of it. In Homeworld 2, the term "Unbound" is never used.
• The Bentusi in Homeworld welcome the Mothership Fleet amongst "space-faring cultures", the Unbound; however some time after Cataclysm's release it became certain that they referred only to Karan S'jet, (Fleet Command) who was connected with the Mothership. By saying "...among space-faring cultures, the Unbound", it is possible they were directly addressing Karan.
• There is, perhaps, some irony in the idea that to be "Unbound" you have to be connected to a ship. Being Unbound, then, means being completely bound to your ship; the idea may be that they're no longer bound by death as Karan S'jet, Makaan, and the Bentusi are all biologically immortal, as long as their ships remain functional. This is confirmed by the Bentusi saying other races live "flicker lives" while they (and presumably Makaan and Karan) are basically immortal and ageless.