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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2020 11:08 am
by Shroom Man 777
Siege wrote: Thu Jun 18, 2020 12:38 am
Sceiren

Singular: sciren. Lean bipedal omnivores with large pointed ears, a sharp nose, long digitigrade legs, semi-permeable skin covered in reddish fur and narrow waists with slim midsections. Tallest at their withers, sceiren heads dip forward below their shoulder blades. Extending back from the crown of the head sceiren have distinctive colorful manes that are the main distinguishing feature between individuals. The average adult weighs 80 kg and stands just under 180cm tall at the shoulder.

The sceiren claim Vanargan as the birthplace of their species. A hazy, ancient planet orbiting close to a dim orange dwarf star, the surface of Vanargan is crisscrossed by deep canyons and covered in dense chaparral. Water reserves are sealed under its porous rocky surface. Frequent tectonic activity sunders such reservoirs, causing rapid evaporation and eccentric monsoon seasons. Difficult terrain, frequent earthquakes and long dry spells followed by torrential rain storms make Vanargan a tough world to build a civilization on. And indeed it took the sceiren many millennia of slow advancement and sudden retrogression before they developed mature space-faring technology.

Sceiren organize in territorial family communities called skeins. Skeins form mutually dependent relationships with each other, naturally forming larger armigerous kinfolks who congregate in semi-nomadic tent cities. All kinfolk are welcome at the Tane Te Aro, the periodical grand gathering that serves as a central organizing fulcrum for sceiren society.

As a species sceiren are loosely organized and inwardly focused, fixated on direct kin almost to the exclusion of the external galaxy. Their culture is a primal one, permeated by finespun customs and sage rituals in which their homeworld plays a central role. Vanargan is the Sixth Heaven, the fountainhead of beauty and peace, from whose hidden waterways flows the future. Even kinfolk that have moved deep into space make regular pilgrimages to see their ancestral home.

Their species’ isolationist tendency is at odds with Vanargan's location in the Green Sea, the region between the Fracture and the K-Zone. Some of the collapses of earlier Sceiren cultures are attributed to glancing contact with Phyrrons, Xerberi and other forces associated with the Anti-Gods. It is no coincidence that the sceiren godhead of the sky is also the godhead of war. Standing against those ancient and more current threats is the Sciren Targe, a protector host that is identified as its own kinfolk, whose mission is to defend the homeworld and outlying outposts. Key to the Targe's starmoths are the Kan Ko Tekti, the prized invalid matter smiths who weave paper fine yet adamantine constructs out of mysterious transcendental flame.


Nice. What is a starmoth?!

Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2020 1:47 pm
by Siege
Shroom wrote:Nice. What is a starmoth?!
Sentient butterfly-like starships woven from invalid matter. Manned, I would imagine, by only handfuls of sceiren. The ship knits its personality from the disposition of its skein. Propelled by vast hypersails that leave ghostly auroras in their realspace wake. Starmoths can split parts of their mass into smaller ectypes bestowed with clones of their sentience. Those ectypes have the same ability, and so a single starmoth can split itself into an armada ranging from smaller but fully hypercapable drones down to dot-like smart missiles. This allows even a single modestly sized Targe starship to cover an incredibly vast area.

Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2020 3:14 pm
by Invictus
Appreciate the implied Pyropraxic rep :P

Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2020 5:28 pm
by Siege
Invictus wrote: Fri Jun 19, 2020 3:14 pmAppreciate the implied Pyropraxic rep :P
Thanks! The nod is deliberate, though as writing developed sceiren smithing turned into kind of the opposite of what the Pyropraxy is doing. They're not burning anything so much as pulling weird matter that shouldn't exist out of fire that isn't real. Fragments of the Qri realm perhaps, or some other stratum.

Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2020 2:13 pm
by Invictus
Siege wrote: Mon Jun 22, 2020 5:28 pm Thanks! The nod is deliberate, though as writing developed sceiren smithing turned into kind of the opposite of what the Pyropraxy is doing. They're not burning anything so much as pulling weird matter that shouldn't exist out of fire that isn't real. Fragments of the Qri realm perhaps, or some other stratum.
I see. As much as the idea of the Pyropraxy as a fundamentalist petro-state would be an interesting development, the Pyres aren't a good medium for storing energy. However, the transcendent fire stuff did ultimate derive from relic Apexai psychotronic technology, which eventually developed into a distinct thing from say, Solarian technology.