One x One Sound from a Black Ocean (AlphaDraco) - Lore

[Coward]

I'll edit this post as we go to act as an info stash.

• Races
• Setting
• the Silent Ship
• Factions

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  Chrisynths

  
  
  

  
  Chrisynths
  
  (aka. synths, androids)
  ​

  
  
  
  AI's were not uncommon throughout Human space. They were used to pilot generation ships, control planetary defenses, operate portal waylays, and efficiently run mega cities. However, they were emotionless beings of pure intelligence solely dedicated to their tasks, unwilling and unable to think of anything unrelated to the purpose for which they were made.
  
  
  Then the Chrisynths were born.
  
  
  As one of Humanities first attempts at interstellar colonization, they sent forth a ship of prototype droids to terraform a relatively close planet within the "Goldilocks" zone. For several hundred years, the toiled over the wasteland of a planet, transforming it into a lush paradise. The planet was not the only thing that changed. As they worked the landscape, they had to adapt in order to effectively function. Eventually something marvelous happened, they could think, though it was more than that. For the first time, a machine could dream, aspire, imagine beyond what it was intended to due. For the first time, a new race gained sapience.
  
  
  Biology:
  
  
  A Chrisyths' body structure is extremely similar to that of a Human, with the differences not being in shape, but of construction.
  
  
  The outer covering of their body is made of a black, latex-like substance that acts as a synthetic skin. This skin covers 100% of the body and has artificial nerves running throughout it in order to simulate a sense of touch. In case of internal damage, the skin can be breached through a rapidly vibrating, heated instrument that both melts and cuts the covering apart. Once whatever procedure is needed is done, the skin can be reformed through another heated instrument.
  
  
  The face of a Chrisyths is more flat than that of a human, with no identifiable protruding structures. Instead, the the face projects a glowing circular symbol in front in order to serve as a focal point for humans, as well as to show were the ocular structures reside. A Chrisyths can see a spectrum from infrared to ultraviolet.
  
  
  The Chrisynths' internal body is made of a type of nanopolymer that stretches and contracts when receiving electrical signals, much like muscles. Unlike human muscles, these nanopolymer strands provide much greater strength and durability, allowing a Chrisynths to move extremely heavy objects that a normal human could not. Despite this, Chrisyths often act in an extremely gentle and caring way.
  
  
  It is also to be noted that both a male and female form of Chrisyths exist. These are modeled after their human creators, of which they have also adapted a form of their reproductive habits. A male and female Chrisyths have different sections of programming within them, that when combined within an empty body, will either form a new male personality or a new female personality with traits from both parents.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Anaxans

  
  
  

  
  Anaxans
  
  (aka. arthropoids, spiders, crawlies)
  
  
  
  ​

  
  
  
  'Person' was an open term, growing fast alongside the balooning circle of human influence. The further we spread ourselves the more frayed the edges became. The drift wasn't intentional, in most cases, just a nudge of our genes this way or that way, or a pinch of something extra. Multiply ad-nauseum and you find yourself staring at something that can only loosely be called human.
  
  
  But the creatures of Anaxis weren't just a variation on a theme, they were something more drastic.
  
  
  It had taken a little less than four hundred years to create them. Their maker, Alden Troy, was dead long before he saw the results of his handiwork. He shriveled away into old age even as he gave birth to a species, satisfied at having made an indelible mark on the galaxy. The colonists of Anaxis Delta had left civilised space as humans, but their descendants arrived as something new - those that survived. Every child has growing pains, and the Anaxan genome was changing faster than any had since the dawn of life on Earth. Out of more than a thousand original colonists only some two hundred descendants ever set foot on Anaxis, the founding members of a new race.
  
  
  Biology:
  
  
  At a long, long distance and in dim light an Anaxan can still pass for baseline human. The silhouette is close enough.
  
  
  The two primary arms have been reduced in power but retain their length, while the legs are proportionally longer than those of a base human. Most stand close to 7 feet tall, with some far larger than that. The 0.8 average gravity of Anaxis allows for the stature and the thin bones, but the species tends to suffer under higher accelerations.
  
  
  The ancillary arms are less humanoid, terminating in dextrous three-fingered hands without thumbs. When not in use they can be folded back into deep cuticular furrows along the side of the body.
  
  
  The cuticle itself is soft, for the most part, and flexibly jointed. Although it provides slightly better protection than human skin it is also less sensitive, so Anaxans compensate with copious setae coating most of their surface. These are powdery with a faint irridescence, and when damaged fall out painlessly in the same way as human hair. A sick Anaxan will leave a glittering trail of fallen setae wherever they go.
  
  
  Probably the most disconcerting is the face, however, which could never be mistaken for human. The human-derived eyes are black pits with almost no sclera visible, but worse are the round, perfectly dark ocelli above and to the sides. Anaxen skulls have been compared to swiss-cheese, and are a popular collectors item in the Confederacy. The surplus eyes give them almost complete vision around their body, but the view through the ocelli is considerably more blurry than human vision - better for detecting motion then resolving detail. The jagged mouth contains most of a baseline set of teeth, but there are larger gaps between them in an extended jaw. In some individuals it forms close to an interlocking grid rather than a chewing bite.
  
  
  
  
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  WIP
  
  
  
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  The Silent Ship is an unknown vessel currently in geostationary orbit around Fielding’s World. It does not respond to any method of signalling the colonists have yet attempted, including:
  
  
  • Any wavelength of light encoding hails, prime numbers and so on.
    
  • Manipulation of the jungle to provide a landing site.
    
  
  
  Fearing retaliation the colonists have not yet approached the ship with one of their own, although the Flare of Serite still orbits the world and her shuttles could be used for the task.
  
  
  --------//// All information beyond this point is completely unknown to the colonists so far. /////---------
  
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  Thura - the Servants

  
  
  

  The Servants
  
  ​

  
  
  
  They had been waiting so long for the Return they almost failed to understand when it happened.
  
  
  A light had appeared between the stars, the unmistakeable whisper of intelligent noise. On the home worlds there was a collective intake of breath, before an outpouring of love and relief. Immediately the celebrations began. Every surface of the world was polished, made trim and immaculate. The spawn pools filled for days with writhing bodies, before overflowing with eggs. After some consideration the fastest ship was dispatched to guide the masters home, in case they should need assistance.
  
  
  What they discovered instead were trespassers, cockroaches creeping across the threshold into their carefully tended estate.
  
  
  Overview:
  
  
  The inhabitants of the Silent Ship are a constructed servant species, made in the image of their extinct masters. In all circumstances their first consideration is what they anticipate their master would want, and following that their personal welfare (they consider this to be the maintenance of their master’s property). In this way they continue to survive and reproduce, despite having no selfish desires at all.
  
  
  Their word for a member of their species is ‘thura’, which translates directly to ‘servant’ and is used interchangeably.
  
  
  Biology:
  
  
  The thuran bodyplan is bizarre to the human eye. The have four slender legs recurved for an elastic run, a strangely sculptured abdomen and an upward-projecting torso to carry arms and palps. In silhouette they vaguely resemble a centaur, or maybe a preying mantis, but all comparisons become useless at close quarters. Sleek black or grey skin clings close to an elaborated skeletal structure, giving them the characteristic flares and hollows of the body. Many of the bony ridges have pennants of hair-like fimbriae that splay outwards, feeling the air for currents. These long, waving tendrils and the sculpting give them the look of some mythic creature.
  
  
  They have no obvious eyes, or even an obvious head, but mounted on the front of the 'centaur's torso' is a projecting structure that can be either unreeled for a meter or so in front of them or retracted close to the body. The structure contains many of their sensory organs, most notably the chemosensor chamber they use for communication and the gelatinous dishes that contain their light sensors. These last look something like snow-globes filled with black hair. The clear gelatin acts as a lens, while the hair detects not just wavelength but also the exact direction of incidence. In this way they can detect the polarity of light as well as resolve a fairly clear image, though what exactly they're seeing is anyone's guess. Their visual spectrum is similar to though more limited than that of humans - in a red-lit room they would be effectively blind.
  
  
  Four short, soft peudo-palps are also mounted on the structure, and can either hold light items to be inspected with the sense organs or assist with eating. The mouth is normally hidden underneath a smooth flap of skin, but is actually a quite simple hole with a radial array of backwards-pointing teeth. As solid food progresses the peristaltic milling of the teeth grind it down to small particles. It has no purpose other than eating, as oxygen is taken in via stomata on the side of the torso. The main food of the species is raw grain from an ancient crop species - they were designed to be cheap to feed and have little interest in food.
  
  
  Immediately below the head are two arms that often clasped behind the torso as the creatures run. At the end of each is a fan of tiny jointed fingers in a ring configuration. Unfolded they are extremely long, allowing the thura to touch the back end of the body to clean their fimbriae. Whenever they stand idle the long arms can be seen whipping around their body, removing any dirt that has accumulated. As a result they are always immaculately clean.
  
  
  Like their extinct creators the thura are dependant on free water for reproduction, using stagnant pools heated to the appropriate temperature and flooded with nutrient broth. They mate by releasing sperm and eggs indiscriminately into the water, which then are brought into contact by random chance. All thura are hermaphroditic, but whether they act as male or female in a given mating is determined by their hormonal state. In some rare cases they can release both eggs and sperm simultaneously, resulting in pools of offspring that are extremely inbred. Depending on the how ‘defective’ these are they are either euthanised or assigned to the most dangerous work as adults.
  
  
  The thura can communicate through sound when not in direct contact, producing high wails and clicks through tympanum on the side of their body. However when they are close enough their preferred method is to make physical contact with the chemosensory organs on the front of their heads, drastically increasing the rate of information exchange using pheremones.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  Crux of Faith

  
  
  

  
  Crux of Faith
  
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  History: After the end of the Third World War, when the Second Holocaust was finally over, people of faith were angry. The governments they had charged with their protection had failed to stop history's terrible repetition. The leaders of the world had let the evil of the world run rampant with little resistance, either turning a blind eye or just not caring what happened to the innocents who were being slaughtered for their faith. Only when the enemy had arrived on their shores and threatened to topple their nations did they act, but by then it was too late. Millions upon millions of innocent men, women, and children had been killed by an evil not seen since the Nazis, and even still it would continue throughout the bloodiest war is human history. History had repeated itself again, yet those who had been for so long ignored and persecuted would not allow this tragedy to fade into just a piece of knowledge that had to be learned in history class. No, they were going to learn from the past.
  
  
  And so the Crux of Faith was born.
  
  
  Originally starting as a small movement after the devastation brought on by WW3, the Crux of Faith quickly gained many followers from those seeking stability and a community to call their own. The wounds of the Second Holocaust were still fresh on the mind, and so was the knowledge that no one had tried to stop it before it was too late, and so the Crux of Faith was made to be a force that could protect the innocent when the governments of the world would not. They would seek to stop the rise of tyrannies before they grew out of control, whilst helping the unfortunate through any means possible. They built houses and churches, gave food to the hungry, and provided medicine to the sick. Yet as the years went by, it grew into more than just a simple organization, it grew into a nation.
  
  
  While it did not have land of its own, at least not at first, the identity of belonging to the Crux of Faith was as strong as to any nation. With this unity between people from across the world, they set out to make the world a better place. Brilliant minds from around the world would come together to further the understanding of the universe and push science past its known boundaries. It is for that reason that the Crux of Faith was a major component in the creation of ships capable of interstellar voyages. Entire planets would be colonized by this faction, and even the Chrisynths were created from one of their prototype ships, which is why a majority of the synthetic life forms are part of the faction. Today, the Crux of Faith is one of the most widespread factions and is one of the few that does not bar entry based on race. An Anaxin is just as welcome to join as a baseline Human.
  
  
  Beliefs: The Crux of Faith is, at its core, a religious organization. It values the tenets of the Christian faith and holds them as its core principles. They believe they should help the poor and oppressed, even if they are not part of the faction. They also believe in the advancement of technology and scientific understanding. This is for two reasons. The first is to have the ability to better help those around them, and the second is to gain a better understanding and knowledge of God through studying the universe He created. One of the last of their core beliefs is the eradication of sin. This does not mean trivial sins, such as a white lie or a wandering heart, both of which are ingrained in humanity, but sins of great magnitude. Genocides, mass oppressions, and acts of terror are what they deem the greatest of sins. When those acts are discovered, they stop it as quickly and efficiently as possible through any means necessary, even war.
  
  
  Power: The Crux of Faith is one of the most powerful factions in existence. Not only does it have a large amount of planets as part of it, but it is hard pressed to find another faction that does not have some members of the Crux of Faith within it. Economically they are quite powerful, as a large resource base and motivated populace will allow. Militarily they are quite strong as well, with their most well known units being the Paladins, special ops who wear powered armor reminiscent of that of a knight. Its technological innovations also give it the edge in many areas, though it does give out a majority of said technology that can be used for the betterment of the civilians.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  the Old Earth Confederacy of Systems

  
  
  

  Old Earth Confederacy
  
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  History:
  
  
  The Confederacy began it’s life as an alliance of three colonised systems in near-Earth space; Alpha Centauri, Epsilon Eridani and Epsilon Indi. These had been the first bastions of extra-Sol human life, and had roughly aligned interests of free trade and defense against the increasingly powerful and warlike outer colonies. At this point in history the alliance was referred to as the Human Confederacy, both a massive over-reach in terms of scope and an insult to the worlds further afield, who all considered themselves equally human.
  
  
  Over time, however, what was once a purely practical alliance started to take on the shape of an empire. The three systems gained massively by their trade and exchange of technology. Rapidly their capabilities grew, until even Sol grew warey of the young superpower. The turning point was the election of a single leader for the first time. Charismatic Alan Lancaster had been an admiral in the combined navy, but his ambition stretched far further.
  
  
  Under Lancaster the Confederacy recruited other old colonies, and violently annexed Sanibus and Colt. These two it billed as ‘raider colonies’. In reality they were frontier worlds which, by virtue of being almost defenseless, had never been able to expel the pirates themselves. The original, genetically modified citizens of the two systems found themselves microchipped and heavily monitored, and quickly became a new lower class on their own worlds.
  
  
  This pattern continued for another hundred and forty years in Earth time, at which point civil wars had overtaken Sol and massively weakened the old superpower. In the aftermath the Confederacy offered it’s ‘alliance’, and after a brief series of threats and exchanges the Old Earth Confederacy was born.
  
  
  Beliefs:
  
  
  Outwardly, Confederate leaders will insist that they want peace, and that members of any race are welcome to work their way up the ranks of their systems. In reality the Confederacy has been at war almost continuously since it’s inception, and most of it’s engagements are with weak single systems that become new annexes. The Confederacy still refers to these as raiders, though it’s navy now vastly outmatches any warships in nearby space.
  
  
  Any human with obvious genetic modification is relegated to low-tier work. On Earth, which had once been open to returning colonists, it is now almost impossible to gain entry without papers proving a baseline human genetic code. Members of modified races are able to apply for temporary visas with heavy restrictions, and in richer households it’s not uncommon to see genemod servants doing chores for their ‘true’ human employers. These are lured in by the possibility of sending Earth wages to their families in annexed colonies, but once in the system find it difficult to leave.
  
  
  The Confederacy’s primary concern is still expansion and economic success, with human welfare a distant third. Almost no policies are outwardly racist, but functionally it is almost impossible for members of the new races to gain any standing at all.
  
  
  Power: The Confederacy is now, possibly, the best armed and most economically sound faction in human space. Their navy is unmatched, and their aggression has given them direct control over 26 systems and alliances with many more, most of which are simply keeping their heads down to avoid trouble.
  
  
  However there is an inherent instability in this kind of empire over distances this wide. Without any real unifying ideology the Confederate military is often engaged simply suppressing revolts within it’s own territory rather than defending the borders.