Descendant Species

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Peregrin
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Descendant Species

Post by Peregrin »

VEGLYR:
Height: 190-205cm
Average weight: 75-95 kgs
Average lifespan: 400+ years
Type: Descendant (psionic, cyborg)
Diet: Omnivorous
Homeworld: Iziru

Like the Xril, the Veglyr are tall and thin compared to their human forebears - in no small part due to the fact that both Veglyr and Xril have adapted to life on low-gravity planets. However, whereas Xril are distinctly different from humans in particularly skull shape, the Veglyr are practically indistinguishable from unusually tall modern-day humans.

The first planet settled was Iziru, orbiting the Vega star in the Lyra constellation. The name Veglyr thus formed as a composite neologism of Vega and Lyra. The particular Progenitors who colonized Iziru, like the settlers of Xhatrr, genetically engineered all of their children to be more adapt to the conditions of the particular homeworld even after a terraforming aided by a mysterious outside faction which all evidence points towards being some sort of earlier incarnation of the Nerakk Empire.


Aside from Vega, they dominate around thirty nearby solar systems, connected by the Wormhole Network. These solar systems are, however, extremely thinly populated for one reason: Most Veglyr communities, be they planetary cities or space-based settlements, are built to be completely self-sufficient and hence require lots of free space for resources. This means that in terms of numbers of people, there are not significantly more Veglyr in the galaxy than there are Xril - they're just more thinly spread. The primary unifying authority of the Veglyr is the pretentiously-titled Cosmic Fleet, whose official primary purpose is to ensure uninterrupted contact between the various Veglyr-held worlds. Each Veglyr community has some extent of presence from Cosmic Fleet personnel. However, after coming into contact with the more hostile of the Faeries and experiencing the unfortunate situation of having some of those among the Veglyr stand in the way of the more capricious among the Mala'akim, the Cosmic Fleet quickly transformed into a highly advanced military space navy. The increasing hostilities with outside elements also prompted the immediate formation of the Cosmic Host, a similar centralized and well-equipped surface military, and an increasing growth in the technological research among the Veglyr, so that both the Cosmic Fleet and the Cosmic Host possess some of the most advanced and destructive weaponry of the Descendant Confederation. However, perhaps due to paranoia, the Veglyr leaders have in the past shown a marked reluctance to share some of this military technology with other members of the Confederation, though they have been growing more compliant since the Twentieth Vixall Conclave, where the Hruka Sovereignty threatened to leave the Confederation if the Veglyr Cosmic Fleet and Host kept safeguarding important technology which could be important to all the Descendants.

This has formed what politicians, especially Xhatrrian ex-Supreme Potentate Txaxil, refer to as the Veglyr Paradox. While most Veglyr cultures are anything but militaristic, they live under a literal military regime... though that might not be so surprising after all when considering that a couple of the martially oriented cultures and religions are among the most prominent of them. Yet, as the Veglyr themselves know very well, this aspect of necessity itself is leading to a growing centralization of Veglyr society, accompanied by a loss of sovereignty among the individual Veglyr towns. Indeed, many among the Veglyr advocate the unification of individual Veglyr worlds, or even all of Veglyrkin, unto sovereign entities, as to halt the evolution of the Cosmic Fleet into an authoritarian central government. That said, they are also aware that such is going to be a long, expensive and potentially very messy process.

Completely aware of their origins throghout their entire existence, the Cosmic Fleet have formed the Descendant Confederation to unite the various Descendants of the Progenitors. With the time, the Hruka and later the Jardra and Xril have joined this confederation.

The dominant Veglyr religions are not theistic per se, rather they are based upon a sense of unity with the cosmos - especially the planets and the stars. A few of the directions, though, perceive the cosmos as something conscious. (a sort of quasi-theism) Another common belief among the Veglyr is that everything we do, everything we make, reflect our view of the universe and how we think of it. As a result, almost all inanimate objects used by the Veglyr are designed as works of art to reflect a sense of unity with the divine universe. As a result, allied battlefleets can be an awkward sight as the multi-coloured, deceptively graceful Sworddancers (as the Veglyr call their warships) fight alongside lenticular Haenoki ships and stocky Jardra vessels.

It appears that the adaptation processes during the formative colonization of Iziru also involved a great deal of parapsychological experimentation, as all members of the Veglyr species demonstrate some extent of psychic powers (though the potency of said psychic powers varies greatly between individual Veglyr) and a lot of their technology uses psychic power in some sort of way. In fact, some Veglyr engineers have even managed to create artificial intelligences which show latent psychic powers.
"You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you." - Heraclitus
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Peregrin
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Xril

Post by Peregrin »

XRIL PHYSIOLOGY:
Height: 195-210 cm
Average weight: 70-80 kgs
Average lifespan (unaugmented): 150-200 years
Average lifespan (augmented): ~400 years
Type: Mammal/cyborg
Diet: Omnivorous
Homeworld: Xhatrr, orbiting the star Xholnra - but have settled planets Kvorthx, Thxar, Xvuulr, Vzakn, Mzkrai, the moons of Xlnur and the planet of Thzax. (all orbiting Xholnra)



The Xril are one of the species descended from humanity. Their ancestors settled on a low-gravity planet which they now know as Xhatrr. This planet is currently fully urbanized with skylines characterised by mile-high towers.

Due to the low gravity of Xhatrr, the Xril are on average taller and thinner than humans, but possess larger feet and longer fingers. The exception to the thinness are the Xvarrol, the remnants of the Guardian Caste, a genetically engineered subrace of the Xril who formed the military of the Xhatrr Dominion before the Great Uprising. Since then, genetic engineering has been used to make the Guardian Caste's descendants more like those of ordinary Xril. (one of the Great Uprising's causes was the Guardian Caste's dissatisfaction with its status in society) One should not assume a Xril to be as physically frail as a similarly thin human, though - their musculature, while similar to the human one in basic structure, is sometimes more compact.

For some reason, Xril are completely hairless except for vestigial eyebrows. Their skulls are noticeably different from those of their human ancestors - though the face itself is like that of a human, but narrower, the forehead is unusually sloped and the skull is very elongated backwards, approximately 130% the length of a human's skull. After the First Wormhole War (also known as the Zxavorian Invasion), the appearance of Xril heads is sometimes referred to as "coneheaded" by some Jardra, though this is generally considered impolite. Xril ears are also narrower and more pointed than those of humans.

Sexually, the Xril are much like humans, with some exceptions. Female Xril menstruate each second Terran month, as a result of their lower body fat percents. It may also be worth mentioning that said Xril females on average have a significantly larger clitoris than 20th century human women, and it is thusly not uncommon for female Xril to be capable of penetrate each other. This may, along with the smaller difference in build and neurological between males and females (compared to homo sapiens) as well as the omnisexual hairlessness of the Xril, may be partial causes of why the very idea of social gender is completely alien to the Xril (though centuries of cultural evolution must not be underestimated either). Trying to explain things like gender roles, crossdressing - even homosexuality and heterosexuality - to a Xril would be a major challenge to the human tasked with doing so. On this topic, it should also be mentioned that centuries of genetic engineering programs have meant that genuine biological sexual ambiguity now is a thing of the past among the Xril.

These genetic engineering programs, incredibly vast in scale, happened at least 200 years before the first Wormhole War and had a general purpose much wider in scale than minimizing the amount of children born with ambiguous genitalia, though - much information about these genetic engineering programs have been lost after history was "cleansed" upon Zxavor's ascent to power, but it appears that these programs, aside from dividing the species into three castes, one of which was the Guardian Caste. However, all current information on the programmes, and even the pre-Zxavorian caste system, is shrouded in mystery.

Where the Xril are the most different from us, though, is their cyborgization. Through advanced computer devices called Communicators which are implanted in their brains at a young age, the entirety of the Xril species are connected to each other through the Neuro-Telepathic Network, a huge communications network which enables individual Xril to communicate telepathically by sending messages to each others' Communicator Implants. However, throughout the ages this network has been modified in increasing amounts by the authorities in order to restrict the type of information transmitted between Communicator Implants for reasons related to law enforcement. The cyborgization of the Xril species often reaches beyond that - most also have their brains modified mechanically for the purpose of enhancing their mathematical intelligence from an early age. Other common augmentations found among Xril include cloned or mechanical replacements for lost or injured body parts, limbs as well as internal organs. Along with all sorts of genotherapy, this allows many Xril to become several centuries old, though the Xhatrr Dominion Government's extensive control of the Neuro-Telepathic Network makes it easy for the masses of the population to forget certain important events.

Interestingly, the extensive cyborgization of their brains means that the Xril have calculation abilities beyond those of any homo sapiens, even autistic savants. In fact, the brain of the average adult Xril consists of more mechanical than organic parts. Many among the other Descendant species argue that the Xril are "more machine than man" and often wonder whether the Xril are not as much Descendants as they are mechanical super-AIs taking hosts of flesh and blood. If you said that to a Xril's face, though, you would probably be met by a clenched fist to the face.

There is some truth to that, however - the nature of the Neuro-Telepathic Network actually means that individual Xril can exchange memories and knowledge between each other, and only government intervention on part of the Xhatrr Dominion has prevented the Xril from developing into a cyborg hive mind.
"You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you." - Heraclitus
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Peregrin
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Re: Descendant Species

Post by Peregrin »

JARDRA:
Average Height: 140-165cm
Average weight: 90-120 kgs
Average lifespan: 120-200 years (300+ with enhancements)
Type: Mammal
Diet: Omnivorous
Homeworld: Avarnam

While the tall, lanky Xril are a product of a low-gravity world, the muscular Jardra are also descended from humans.... even though it's hard to believe that species that different are so related.
One fleet of sleeper colony ships crashed upon an arid low-gravity world later to be known as Xhatrr, another sleeper fleet crashed in a nearby star system also with an Earthlike planet. Here, however, the climate was warmer and the gravity was larger due to the planet's weight.

The humans there resorted to barbarism and a new culture, adapted to the plains and forests of this planet, emerged. The planet these once-humans now lived upon was given the name Avarnam by the most succesful tribe, the Varounn, who quickly became the dominant nation upon Avarnam. The star system was called Vorou after them as well.
While they have adapted to life on a high-gravity world, much bigger than Earth, their appearance had changed. They were sufficiently wider and stronger, but also much shorter.

Aside from Avarnam, another planet in its solar system has Earthlike conditions - it is, however, recently terraformed planet and was thusly only sparsely populated by the time of the Zxavorian invasion. SoThis planet is known as Vodra. The Other planets in the Vorou system - were each a self-governing republic save for Vodra which was dominion of Avarnam - also having Jardra habitants, living in artificial environments built to emulate the ones on Avarnam.

However, after the end of the first Zxavorian War and the overthrow of Zxavor, the Vorou system was unified under the Xhatrr Dominion-allied Empire of Greater Avarnam. By the time the Jardra and the Xril were contacted by the Veglyr, this Empire had expanded its dominion far beyond the Vorou System.
"You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you." - Heraclitus
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Re: Descendant Species

Post by Peregrin »

HAENOKI:
Height: 100-120cm
Average weight: 25-30 kg
Average lifespan: 600+ years
Type: Mammal/Cyborg
Diet: Omnivorous
Homeworld: Kiir (now Nomadic spacefarers)

The large-headed, frail Haenoki are descended from those Progenitor-Descendants who were relocated to the planet of Kiir. Upon achieving independence from the Nerakk Empire and developing down their own path of cultural evolution, they gave themselves the name the Haenoki.

However, at some point Kiir was attacked by an enemy whose identity has never been discovered, as the conflicting accounts blame different factions for it. Both the Nerakk, the Mala'akim, the Faeries and even a hypothethical surviving remnant of the Ncha have been accused.

No Haenoki eyewitnesses lived to tell the tale of the Siege of Kiir. The only survivors were the Haenoki spacefleet, who immediately fled through a wormhole gateway (which was programmed to selfdestruct after all Haenoki ships had left) to a nearby solar system.

Living their entire lives aboard spaceships, the Haenoki have thusly jumped from sun to sun in order to avoid pursuit of the immolators of Kiir until they met the Veglyr, whom they eventually allied with out of necessity as they learned to communicate. Nonetheless, the Haenoki still today have strained relationships with the rest of the Descendant Confederacy. They are often too caught up in internal political conflict between the individual clans (more on this later) which, while not violent, to have a coherent policy towards the outside world. In fact, some of the other Descendants consider it a liability to have the Haenoki among their allies.

Haenoki society is divided into tribes known as Clanfleet. Each clanfleet lives on its own Clanship, an enormous and ancient spaceship shaped like an immense disk over ten kilometres in diametre. The Clanfleets came into being as a degeneration of the subfleets of the original Kiir Spacefleet as these gigantic motherships were built after the first exodus from Kiir. Each of these subfleets came to be centered around a big Mothership from which it took its name, and with these motherships developing internal cultural identities through time as the subfleets became more independent from each other, the Subfleets became Clanfleets and the Motherships became Clanships.

The Clanfleets are:
  • Clanfleet Tagdlaklak. Their emblem is an open right hand. As official colours they have purple and yellowish-green.
  • Clanfleet Salindrion. Their emblem is a triskele (a symbol which can best be described as a three-armed swastika). They decorate in various shades of light blue.
  • Clanfleet Khurabazhr, whose emblem is a green starburst.
  • Clanfleet Kauvi, whose emblem is a golden circle and a silvern circle interlocking with each other.
  • Clanfleet Aesvurn has a simple net for its emblem and as its official colours various combinations of blue, black and white.
  • Clanfleet Rolkyyrakt decorated with various reddish and purplish colours. Their emblem is the head of a mace.
"You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you." - Heraclitus
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Re: Descendant Species

Post by Peregrin »

HRUKA:
Average Height: 200-230cm
Average weight: 90-120 kg
Average lifespan: 120-150 years
Type: Mammal/Cyborg
Diet: Omnivorous
Homeworld: Dragim


HISTORY OF THE HRUKA

The Hruka have the smallest sphere of influence of all the Descendant species, save for perhaps the nomadic Haenoki. This is due to the fact that the Hruka are direct heirs to the Progenitors and descended most directly from the Progenitors. As such, they safeguard the Cradle System.

However, they do not actually live on the Progenitor homeworld, which now is a barren wasteland with very few natural resources.

Their history is long and strange.

It all started roughly a century after the period to which the Hruka now refer as First Dark Age Of Industry, when the Nerakk intruded upon the Cradle System, wherein the ultimate homeworld of the Descendants was found, and upon it the Progenitors.

Due to resource scarcity, the civilizations of the Progenitors had collapsed into post-industrial tribalism and anarchy by the time the Nerakk arrived. For some reason, though, as soon as the Nerakk and the Progenitors breached the communications barrier and the first interpreters were educated, the Nerakk recruited many Progenitors as advisors to their exploration and development of the worlds of the Cradle System.

The world most similar to the homeworld, a cold planet-wide red desert called which the Nerakk themselves dubbed Dragim, was by then in the process of being terraformed by the Nerakk. The Progenitor name for this planet has been lost in time, as the Progenitors rapidly adapted the then-language of the Nerakk as their own, or at least attempted to. Due to anatomical differences, as well as cultural, the de facto language of the Progenitors was now a pidgin of a highly distorted version of the Imperial Nerakk and their own various native languages, though bearing no resemblance to either. They still maintained a corps of fluently Imperial Nerakk-speaking interpreters, however.

The many Progenitors who went in service of the Nerakk Empire were rewarded with rights to resettle upon Dragim. On Dragim, they adapted to the difference in conditions between those on the homeworld and those on Dragim, which is slightly smaller than Xhatrr. The resulting evolution produced a people now known as the Progenitor-Descendants, which now is used as an umbrella term to describe the various transition forms between Progenitors and Hruka. Some Progenitors, however, were resettled on other worlds now known as Iziru and Kiir. From the latter, Progenitors would in turn colonize planets later to be known as Xhatrr and Avarnam long before the further scattering of the inhabitants of Kiir due to a mistake on the part of the Nerakk, an incident which would spawn the nomadic civilization now known as the Haenoki Clans.

Then, something happened. Desiring political and cultural independence from the Nerakk Empire, and now equipped with military technology and ships fully the equivalent of what the Nerakk had back then, the Progenitor-Descendants rebelled against the Nerakk Empire along with a fair amount of local Nerakk forces seemingly sympathetic to them. Knowing that they could not loose their enemies in the Progenitor-Descendants, especially that they were busy with wars upon other fronts, the Nerakk Empire quickly granted the Progenitor-Descendants, right to sovereignty over the Cradle System under the promise that the Nerakk Empire would still be allowed to maintain a small military presence in the Cradle System.

The Progenitor-Descendants started research into their native languages in order to create a new language, as free of Nerakkisms as possible, though still a distorted pidgin of their previous languages. From the new language they now created in their attempt to make a primary indigenious language, they chose the word "Hruka" to describe themselves, meaning "Guardians", as they saw themselves as the guardians of the Cradle System. Similar developments, by the way, also happened on Kiir and Iziru, but the "reclaiming of the language" on Dragim was different in one significant way: This new language, known as High Hrukan, never became widely used as other than a lingua franca among the upper classes which quickly galvanized into a de-facto nobility. The lower classes still speak a derivative of the older pidgin of Imperial Nerakk and pre-Nerakk progenitor languages, though their language now bears little resemblance to either. A new government was instituted, now the Hrukan Oligarchy.

It should be noted, though, that by the time the Hrukan Oligarchy was instated, the people calling themselves Hruka were probably closer to the modern-day Veglyr biologically, as the Hruka had even then not evolved fully into their present incarnation.

120 years after the formation of the Hrukan Oligarchy, however, the Nerakk Empire was now in trouble due to reasons completely unrelated to the Hruka themselves. The Nerakk presiding in both the Cradle system and other planets settled by Progenitors left to focus on a war against "a mysterious foe" in the other end of the Empire. It would be millennia before the Hruka heard of the Nerakk again. However, the dire warnings from the Nerakk frightened the Hrukan Oligarchy, and they devoted their entire civilization towards protection against an eventual attack from said mysterious foe.


APPEARANCE

This day, the Hruka are a very tall people, but nowhere as lanky as the gangling Xril or even the merely thin Veglyr. This is somewhat odd, as Dragim actually has a lower gravity than Xhatrr, but this is thought to have been the result of genetic engineering ordered by the Hrukan Oligarchy. Their upper bodies, except their heads and necks, are covered in a layer of dark hair, and their hands and feet are very big in proportion to the rest of the body due to the low gravity of Dragim, and their arms are often more muscular than their legs.


POLITICS

Politically, the Hruka are a strongly caste-divided society. The nobility comprises the higher ranks of the military, the scientists, engineers and politicians. It is the one from which the Oligarchy draws its ranks. The Oligarchy is the immense, and almost omnipotent government of the Hruka, which maintains a steady vigil upon every single aspect of Hrukan society in order to ensure the security of the Cradle System. The various lower groups, who each speak a caste-specific language, perform a variety of tasks not exclusive to each lower caste. Suffice to say, they do all the stuff which the nobility will not do, as well as some of the tasks which are open to both nobility and the lower castes (eg. military service). To some, in fact, the Hrukan Oligarchy actually looks more like a strong tribal union where one of the tribes does all the thinking.

What the Hrukan Oligarchy are infamous for is their isolationism which borders on paranoia. They have a long tradition for being simultaneously indifferent about outside affairs yet obsessive about their own political independence. This means that as helpful as they have been to the Descendant Confederacy in providing and educating interpreters of the Imperial Nerakk language, as impossible is it for an outside politician to get the Hrukan Oligarchy to accept any sort of compromise not in obvious favour of the Hruka themselves. That is just the tip of the iceberg, however. Anyone ship arriving by wormhole in the Cradle System will very likely find itself surrounded by a vast flotilla of warships; if not already hit by several negamatter missiles. It is also impossible for an outsider, save for ambassadors, to as much as visit the Cradle System. This isolationism and outright xenophobia has been admitted by the Hrukan Oligarchy themselves to be a function of the fate of their former allies, the Nerakk, who left to fight a war against a mysterious, shadowy foe (often believed to be the Mala'akim) only to see their empire shrink into a shadow of its former self.

For these reasons, the Hruka seem very enigmatic to other Descendants.

Recently, the Hrukan Oligarchy has, with the approval of the Descendant Confederacy, been stationing increasing amounts of troops and spacefleets in other parts of the Descendant Confederation where they would be most needed.
"You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you." - Heraclitus
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Ford Prefect
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Re: Descendant Species

Post by Ford Prefect »

I must comend you on the almost anthropological nature of these old articles. The descendants are, for lack of a better term, convincingly alien.
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Re: Descendant Species

Post by Artemis »

A hearty second to Ford's assessment. I'm really digging the diversity of cultures among the various Descendants, though to be honest I'd like to see some more schisms within each race - they all seem a little homogeneous at the moment.
"The universe's most essential beauty is its endlessness. There is room and resources enough for all of us. Whether there is room for all of our passions is the question, and the problem that we work tirelessly to find a solution to."

-Qhameio Allir Nlafahn, Commonwealth ambassador, during the signing of the Kriolon Treaty.
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