Nebu

Nebu
Power-state, tribal empire, and ruling seat of the Dark Alpha in Tribal: Bloody Beginnings
Series	Tribal
First appearance	Tribal: Bloody Beginnings
Created by	Tony James Nelson II
Type	Tribal empire Military power-state
Ruled by	The Dark Alpha / Conri
Government	Alpha rule
Key figures	The Dark Alpha The Bote The Commander Doctor Polezah
Military forces	Wolves Harpies Deathwave
Known rivals	Gia Terra
Status	Active

Nebu is a fictional tribal empire in Tribal: Bloody Beginnings by Tony James Nelson II. It is the principal power center of the Book’s darkest political, military, and experimental systems. Ruled by the Dark Alpha / Conri, Nebu is not simply a tribe in the ordinary sense, but a full structure of conquest, hierarchy, conditioning, record-keeping, engineered violence, and dynastic control.

In the Book, Alpha explicitly claims conquered Gia as “part of the Nebu empire,” confirming that Nebu operates not only as a tribe, but as an imperial force.

Nebu is where many of the Book’s central horrors converge. It is the seat of Alpha’s throne, the domain of the Bote and the Commander, the base of Harpies and Deathwave, the site of Doctor Polezah’s laboratory, and one of the main places where human beings are turned into functions rather than allowed to remain people.

Overview

In the Book, Nebu functions on several levels at once:

• a tribe with its own internal laws and markings
• a military machine built on wolves, Harpies, and engineered weapons
• an imperial state capable of conquering rivals
• a cultural system that strips identity and replaces it with rank, duty, and survival

Nebu is therefore not just a place on a map. It is a way of organizing power.

Government and rule

Nebu is ruled by the Dark Alpha / Conri, whose authority is absolute. The Book repeatedly shows Alpha issuing orders that are obeyed instantly and without debate, whether those orders involve assassination, capture, ritual observation, or state violence. His voice and presence define the whole structure beneath him.

Directly beneath Alpha are key authority figures such as:

• the Bote
• the Commander
• elite specialists such as Doctor Polezah

These figures are not decorative. The Bote communicates Alpha’s will, the Commander enforces military structure, and Polezah expands Nebu’s biological and experimental power.

Political structure

Nebu appears to operate as a personal empire centered on Alpha rather than a bureaucratic kingdom. Power flows downward from the throne through trusted enforcers, elite military bodies, and specialized roles.

The Book also makes clear that Nebu’s expansion is territorial. After defeating Gia’s defenders, Alpha declares: “Gia is mine. Conquered. Claimed. Part of the Nebu empire.” This line matters because it turns Nebu from a background tribe into an openly expansionist power.

Military forces

Nebu’s military power is layered and specialized.

Wolves

The standard warrior class in Nebu is the wolf. Wolves form the base of Nebu’s violence structure and are marked according to tribal law. Thirty-Two states that in the Tribe, every wolf is marked except Alphas, Botes, and Commanders. This reveals both a rigid hierarchy and the importance of visible classification in Nebu’s culture.

The wolves are disciplined, deadly, and numerous enough to be used in search formations, captures, executions, and cleanup operations. Twenty Nebu wolves are shown surrounding Rimitorry in a “perfect semicircle,” indicating professional tactical coordination.

Harpies

The Harpies are an elite female combat unit associated with Alpha’s inner structure. They flank the throne in their usual places and move with speed and efficiency whenever Alpha’s orders are set into motion. The Book also suggests that becoming a Harpy is selective and brutal; failed Harpy candidates are later shown in Polezah’s lab as repurposed experimental bodies.

Deathwave

Deathwave is Nebu’s engineered assassin line, created through Doctor Polezah’s program. Deathwave represents the most extreme refinement of Nebu’s military logic: not just training people to kill, but designing them into weapons from childhood onward.

Named enforcers and heirs

Nebu’s strength is also embodied in singular figures such as Khalembo, the scythe-bearing son left behind and shaped into conquest, and in the terrifying power scale represented by Alpha himself.

Culture

Nebu’s culture is defined by hierarchy, functionality, and the destruction or suppression of ordinary identity.

Numbering and marks

One of the clearest cultural rules in the Book is that wolves are marked. Numbers replace names for many in Nebu’s structure, reducing identity to role and classification. The exception — Alphas, Botes, and Commanders — reveals that as rank rises, personal designation becomes less necessary because power itself becomes identity.

This cultural logic is central to characters like Thirty-Two, whose life under Nebu is defined by being turned into a number rather than allowed to remain fully human.

Function over personhood

Nebu repeatedly treats people as assets, roles, or outcomes:

• wolves are tools of enforcement
• Harpies are elite weapons
• Deathwaves are engineered killers
• proctors are living record-keepers
• failed bodies can be repurposed in the lab

This makes Nebu one of the clearest examples in the Book of a society where usefulness outranks dignity.

Institutions and important locations

Nebu contains several important internal institutions.

The throne room

The throne room is the ceremonial and strategic center of Nebu power. Alpha rules from there, flanked by Harpies, shadowed by the Bote, and attended by the Commander. It is also where pages of the Tribal Bible are used through the proctor to observe distant events, making the throne room not just political space, but mystical-command space.

The lower levels

The Book explicitly refers to “the lower levels” of Nebu, where Alpha orders Sakori to be locked after Gia’s fall. This suggests an internal prison or deep containment structure for dangerous captives and broken family members.

Doctor Polezah’s lab

Beneath Nebu is Doctor Polezah’s laboratory, one of the most disturbing locations in the Book. It is where failed Harpy subjects are kept in cases, where brain-transfer research is conducted, and where the Deathwave line is advanced. This lab extends Nebu’s power from military domination into body horror and experimental control.

The proctor system

Nebu maintains the office of proctor, a protected witness and record-keeper responsible for carrying tribal truth. Thirty-Two is made proctor after Tia’s family is eliminated “in the name of Nebu,” and the office is described as one with immunity and burden: the proctor must watch everything, remember everything, and carry every secret.

This is one of the most distinctive features of Nebu as a state. It does not rely only on soldiers and killers. It also institutionalizes witnessing.

Religion, text, and sacred power

Nebu is closely tied to the Tribal Bible, though not everyone in Nebu can use it. In the throne room, Alpha tears a page from the Book and gives it to Thirty-Two to read, opening a cloud-window to a distant event. Thirty-Two realizes he may be the only one in the room who can read it — not Alpha, not the Commander, not the Harpies, and not even the Doctor.

This makes Nebu not just politically powerful, but dependent on rare access to sacred or forbidden textual power.

This also means Nebu’s control is incomplete. It has the Book, but not universal mastery over it.

Nebu and empire

Nebu’s imperial ambition becomes unmistakable in the Gia sequence. Alpha does not speak of victory as a raid or temporary conquest. He claims Gia as part of Nebu itself. This suggests that Nebu sees itself as the central force destined to absorb or dominate rival realms.

The Book therefore presents Nebu as more than a home base for villains. It is a growing empire, with Alpha at its center and family, conquest, and weaponized science all bound together under its rule.

Nebu and the family of Alpha and Utrea

Nebu is also the home of one of the Book’s greatest contradictions: it is both a state and a family wound.

Inside Nebu are:

• Alpha’s throne
• the machinery that shaped Khalembo
• the place Eshari was effectively left behind to be changed
• the lab that fed the Deathwave system
• the lower levels where Sakori is imprisoned after Gia falls

Nebu therefore cannot be separated from the broken bloodline of Family of Alpha and Utrea. The empire is partly made out of family damage.

Relationship with other powers

Gia

Nebu and Gia are direct rivals in the Book. Rimitorry explicitly speaks of “Gia. Nebu. The war,” making clear that the conflict between them is long-running and defining. Alpha’s later conquest of Gia escalates that rivalry into open imperial domination.

Terra

Terra becomes strategically important to Nebu because of Reonniz. Once Kavumo reveals that Reonniz has been hidden there since birth, Nebu’s attention turns toward Terra as the next site of control, extraction, and possible war.

Themes

Nebu is strongly tied to several of the Book’s central themes:

• Empire through violence
• Identity erased by hierarchy
• Family and state fused together
• People reduced to function
• Sacred power used as surveillance
• Conquest as inheritance

Narrative importance

Nebu matters because it is the Book’s main dark center. If Gia often carries memory, loss, or resistance, Nebu carries control. It is the place where:

• Alpha rules
• orders become executions
• bodies become experiments
• children become weapons
• truth itself must be institutionalized through a proctor

Without Nebu, much of the Book’s horror would remain personal. Nebu turns that horror into a system.

Trivia

• Alpha explicitly calls Gia “part of the Nebu empire.”
• In Nebu, every wolf is marked except Alphas, Botes, and Commanders.
• The throne room includes Alpha, the Commander, the Bote, and three Harpies in their usual positions.
• Nebu warriors are shown capturing Rimitorry in a coordinated search formation.
• Sakori is ordered locked in Nebu’s lower levels after Gia falls.
• Tia Washington’s family is targeted “in the name of Nebu.”

See also

• The Dark Alpha
• Gia
• Terra
• Doctor Polezah
• Deathwave
• The Bote
• The Commander
• Tribal Bible
• Family of Alpha and Utrea
• Tribal Bloody Beginnings (novel)