Non-Descendant Species of this Universe

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Peregrin
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Non-Descendant Species of this Universe

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THE NERAKK:

The Nerakk are the most familiar alien civilization to the Descendant Confederacy, for the reason that they not only used to rule a vast empire spanning a fifth of the Milky Way galaxy, but also because because they were close allies of Progenitors. In fact, the Hruka, the most direct descendants of the Progenitors who still inhabit the Cradle System and safeguard it, owe the very existence of Descendants to the help they received from the Nerakk. For this reason, the Hruka also revere the Nerakk and were the first Descendants to make interpreter AIs involving the various Nerakk languages. Before the Progenitors developed space travel, the Nerakk conquered many star systems with their own mastery of wormhole generation.

Today, however, the Nerakk have somehow retreated to a small pocket of space around their home system of Viljanat and are even more isolationistic than the Hruka. It is not known why they retreated, but it has often been suggested that the Mala'akim were responsible for two reasons. Firstly, the gov't of the Hruka can confirm that roughly 120 years after the establishment of the Hrukan Oligarchy, all Nerakk forces in their system left to defend their other protectorates against invasions. Secondly, the Nerakk military are known to attack Mala'akim on sight. The Mala'akim themselves refuse to speak about this, nor can the faeries offer an explanation.

The Nerakk are rarely seen as much as their three-legged robotic Emissaries, but the closest point of reference for a 20th century human is that of a landbound giant squid. The body itself has an almost bullet-like shape with a diameter of between a half and one metre and a length of two metres. The body hangs down on the back, at each side of the mouth (which is located on the blunt end of the bullet-shaped body) protude four sturdy tentacles, between 3 and 4½ metres in length, which the Nerakk use for propulsion and one give-metre long tentacle used for manipulation. This thusly gives an individual Nerakk eight "legs" and two "arms". Oddly, like the Mala'akim, the Nerakk do not have eyes in our sense of the word but rely instead on luminescent optical nerves scattered over the entire body, as well as at the end of their manipulator tentacles. That is not the main source of information for a Nerakk, though - they communicate mostly by sound, and their hearing is amongst the most sensitive of all creatures in the galaxy.

The reproductive system of the Nerakk is difficult to describe because their basic biology is so different from that of Descendants. The Nerakk equivalent of females can actually fertilize their own eggs all by themselves, but in order to produce something else than a clone they rely on the sterile Nerakk male-equivalents, which splice the genetic material between the two picked-up eggs from two females in an organ inside their body, but since they cannot incubate, the second-sex Nerakk also have to return the resulting composite egg to one of the two females. For this reason, Nerakk marriages usually consists of two females and one male. There is also a third biological sex among the Nerakk, known as "thirds" (technically an actual third sex rather than an intersex condition; though those also occur among the Nerakk, Nerakks with them universally view themselves as thirds) which is capable of neither egg-blending or fertilizing. The thirds rely on cloning in laboratories to reproduce and dominate positions of power in Nerakk society for reasons unclear to outsiders. In fact, the rulers of the past Nerakk Empire were uniformly thirds according to the gov't archives of the Hruka.

These days, the borders of the scant remnant of the Nerakk Empire, known currently as the Nerakk Enclave, are patrolled by a vast navy of gigantic heavily-armed spaceships, some of which are said to be several centuries old. Their government is increasingly isolationist, as mentioned before, and are now extremely distrustful of outsiders. In fact, they were found to be behind the Siege of Kiir and they only apologized when the Haenoki joined the Descendant Confederation. As a result, the Hruka are often the only friends of the Nerakk among the Descendant Confederation, which is often considered ironic as the Hruka also distrust the leaders of the other Descendant species, though sometimes with good reason.
"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: Non-Descendant Species of this Universe

Post by Peregrin »

EXTINCT SPECIES OF THE GALAXY

On many worlds throughout the galaxy are found ruins and fossils of barely forgotten peoples whose vast empires spread across the galaxy many thousands years ago. A certain gas giant is known as the Great Spaceship Graveyard, for most of its satellites are not natural moons but the ancient, battle-scarred wreckages of enormous battleships whose masters countless centuries ago did battle against each other around that very planet in their final death-throes. Even as derelicts, these ships are impressive to behold. It is no mystery that some Nerakk and Hruka religions consider the Great Spaceship Graveyard one of the most sacred places in the galaxy. Nobody, except perhaps some of the oldest Faeries know whose battered and fallen star-chariots once battled there.

However, the origins of some of the other ancient derelict spaceships, great ruined cities and outlandish fossils found on some worlds of the galaxy are known or at least guessed at, either from myths or accounts from the Nerakk and the Faeries, occassionally even the Mala'akim, who have records of contact with them.
  • The Arkhontes are remembered only by the Faeries and the Mala'akim, who occassionally find the appearance of the Haenoki vaguely similar to those of the Arkhontes. Say that to a Haenok, though, and the first response you will receive will probably be a puzzled "Arkh-who?". The Arkhontes apparently coexisted in the same alien plane of existence inhabited by the Mala'akim and often made similar visits to our universe. Very little is known about them aside from their supposed vague resemblance to the Haenoki and that they apparently were wiped out in a war with the Mala'akim. A few Faeries insist that the Arkhontes still exist as an enclave in their home universe in a situation not totally unlike that which the Nerakk still is in, with a similar policy of total isolationism towards the outside multiverse. It is unknown how the extermination of the Arkhontes fit into the Mala'akim's great plans which they often talk ambiguously but pompously about, plans which appear to be their motivations for their various contacts with the Descendants.
  • The Caespsiano either preceded the Nerakk Empire or perished before any Nerakk encountered a living Caespsiano. They had evolved from sentient plant-life on their homeworld and were technically thusly "walking trees", though they bore no resemblance at all to what a human would associate the word "tree" with. At a point a Faerie who took the form of a Caespsiano set himself up as a self-styled messiah amongst the Caespsiano and managed to unite most of Caespsiano-held space under his banner until a rival Faerie attempted to reproduce the same success and threw the Eternal Holy Empire of the Caespsiano into a bloody civil war which caused the Faeries to swear to one another to keep a long a distance from the Caespsiano as possible. They never heard from them again.
  • The Great Singularity are perhaps the most mysterious of these past civilizations. Predating even the Caespsiano, the Great Singularity's remnants were found in the solar system of Siinirak by the Xhatrr Dominion in the early years of the Post-Zxavorian era. The seemingly barren planets therein were home to enormous subterranean cities devoid of any fossil life, and several mysterious derelict spaceships were found in orbit. Upon investigation it was concluded that the cities had been built by and for robots. The cities left behind by the Great Singularity, as these were dubbed, have been found to be 5 million years old.
  • The Ncha were the contemporary rivals of the Nerakk Empire and are thought by Clan Aesvurn to have instigated of the Siege of Kiir. They perished in the three-way war which reduced the Nerakk Empire to the tiny enclave it is today. The third faction, whose identity still is unknown to anyone but the Nerakk these days, however, did not spare the Ncha who were exterminated completely. The best description of the appearance of an Ncha to a 20th century human is that of a gigantic carrot with five tentacle-like legs, a head similar to a five-pointed star with an eye at each end, two vast wings and lots of tentacles. According to the (probably biased) accounts of the Nerakk Enclave, the Ncha lived in the harshest regime of terror any mind could conceive of. Nonetheless, some Veglyr architects have taken inspiration from the styles of ruined cities later identified as Ncha.
  • The Ucenituc are said to have evolved on a planet where it rained sand, not water, from the skies. Those few who have heard of them are noted by how the Ucenituc were the only hive-mind species yet to become a spacefaring civilization. This is very impressive even if the Ucenituc were not a hive mind, for according to accounts single Ucenituc was a 15cm long tubular oceanic organism with no other appendage than the sharp proboscis which exited through the narrow mouth at the narrow end of the Ucenituc's funnel-shaped head with the capability to excrete a quickly-drying blue ink-like liquid. Some believe that the entire existence of the Ucenituc was originally a joke which wound up as an urban legend taken as fact.
"You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you." - Heraclitus
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