The T'aeghirus (pronunce it in a latinesque way)
Traduction of their name:
T': Preposition for sentinent beings
Aegh: Apparent weakness
Irus: Brothers, strong friends, comrade, honourship
Physical appearance:
The T'aeghirus are a race that descendent from a half bird, half dinosaur specie that appeared in the planet N'aham.
Their aspect is quite fragile, due to the low gravity of their original planet, and in such a way, almost pathetic. They look like a grey, feather-less vulture- Their height is like 3/5 of a human one, and their wings were designed to planeate, not fly, and when they started to use them as extremities their aerodinamic function became atrophiated.
Description:
As you can see, the T'aeghirus are a quite fragile race. Their appearance doesn't helps too much to end with this image, to tell the truth. But not let yourself to be fooled by this. They are, as their name claims "the loyalty of the weak ones". The strenght of this race is not external, but internal, is not in their body, but in their hearts. These creatures are extremely united in brotherhood, and although they are not agressive, if moved to the rage they will fight with bravery to the very last drop of their purple blood. But what makes them unique, however, is, as I reported, their union. Their social and political system, called "The Alliegance" is one of the most perfect ones ever seen in any other race, even by the cooperative humans, and as the T'aeghirus joke "democracy is a poor man's version of The Alliegance". The individual would never make something that damages their family, the families would never do anything that would harm their leaders or goverment, the goverment would never do anything that would harm the society, the "Alliegance". Their civic consciousness amazed even to the Orions itselfs. To illustrate it, one flavour story that the Orions recorded when they studied this race in its early stages in the first time:
"when we were making a research of marine lifeforms of N'aham, we saw how a T'aeghirus boat sunk, and 50 survivors were left in a desert island in the middle of the ocean. Due to the extreme conditions and the almost unexistant food, we believed that we would seen soon scenes of tension, madness and murder. But instead of that, to our surpuirse, they were able to rationate the food without problems, create an accepted leadership (in just few days!) and later, even accepting stoicly to sacrifize in a random process in order to feed with their meat the rest. Finally, they were able to finish a boat, in order to look for help. And so they did. Only 3 of them died during this nightmare, the ones that sacrificed theirselves to feed the anothers".
Planet:
N'aham. One beautifull low gravity planet with variated landscape but predominately dominated by mountains and valleys, creating lot of micro climates. Its biological richness leaded to a fiercely species competition, and a quite hostile animal enviroment filled with predators. Only trought cooperation and and organization the weak T'aeghirus were able to survive in such a fascinating - but lethal - landscape.
Story:
Although their society is quite peacefull now, their story was not, and it explains pretty well how they managed to raise such a strong solid structure. Thier planet was full of hostile predators, some of them of gargatuan proportions ("the tchillome will eat you if you don't eat all your grain"). Therefore, were forced to cooperate and develop technology in order to survive. This however, leaded to a very "nation like" feelings, and soon divided fractions of T'aeghirus started to quell and enter in conflict.
Meanliwhile, the Orions noticed them, and founded them fascinant. Fearing to "corrupt them", they gave N'aham the tittle of "planet reserve", and started to observ them without let them notice. THen the Great COnflict arisen, and the two main T'aeghirus empires clashed. In this war, heavy weapons were used, and in the process, somethign went really wrong. One biologic weapon had a collaterall effect, not in the T'aeghirus theirselves, but in a 80% of the native lifeforms. To summarize what their effect was, the most accurate word to describe it is "zombie". The hordes of enraged beasts broke into cities and villages, exterminating every T'aeghirus on its way and leading to a collapse of the confronting empires. The T'aeghirus realised of their error and desesperately, forgot their political differences and tried to save the remainings of their civilization. And they suceeded far beyond their expectatives. THe Alliegance was created solemny, and from the ashes of the two empires, they rised againg like the Phoenix. Now, with this illness cured, their leaders realised that in order to preserve the unity, they needed to create a goal for them. And what can be a more noble goal than to reach the stars? And so their journey begings...
Society:
Quite united. Their crime and corruption rates are mazingly low. A T'aeghirus citizen would never do something that would harm directly or not to the Alliegance, from betray their own race to skip one day of class. The T'aeghirus are devouted and love their families and honestly wants to honour their surname and lineage. But they will never, ever do something for their families that would harm their superiors. They are quite devoted to their leaders, that are ellected by selective voting and constantly scrutinized by the public. The T'aeghirus DO care about the public issues, everyone knows exactly what their goverment is doing, why, when, and how. Political debate is constant and amazingly popular (yes, they enjoy watching their parlament debate a proposal, they even have SEVERAL specialized and popular TV channels only devouted to that). The "Alliegance" is somehow, like a participative democracy and a brotherhood alltogether. Their corrupt leaders usually ends up suiciding. However, their system is quite curious because it do not have universal suffrage. In order to vote you have to pass a course (like a highschool one) in order to proove that you have the knowdegle and maturity enough to influenciate into the great decisions, avoinding populisms and easy made politic slogans. They are amazingly proud of their system, to whcih they looks at it like an admired father. In fact, the Alliegance puts lot of effort into protect the weakest ones of their kind and into education. And like an admired father, every T'aeghirus is willing to die for him if it's need it...
Religion:
Their faiths are varaited (like the human ones), but their tendence is to believe in a monotheist God. They also pledge respect to the ancients and the ancesters, Is a universal credency between the T'aeghirus. Although their beliefs shares these elements in common, they have lot of variants (specially in rituals) depending from one region to each other due to the valley - like structure of their world. Their beliefs are usually quite personal, they defend the sepparation between church and state "because is the best thign for everyone", but their most reputated political leaders of the past are usually mitificated and saw as "messengers of the heaven".
Diplomacy:
Normal in general, but they are quite fearfull to be damaged by someone (as they were), and therefore, they are usually not quite willing to compromise into an alliance. But if in the end they end upt making an alliance, they will defend their brother race with passion.
Weakness:
The T'aeghirus are a pretty much weak race, phisically talking. Their low G planet and their total lack of "natural defenses" mades them quite poor combatants. Their status of "protected ones" gave by the Orions have also isolated them from the rest of the galaxy, making them quite ignorant aobut the previous powerfull ancient civs...
Strength:Their political system is glorious. Happyness, science, culture and lack of corruption are the triumpths that the Alliegance shows prowdly to the rest of the systems. They are also quite willingly to sacrifice theirselves for the good of everyone. Their troops can be weak, but they are also courageos as few can claim, and their popullation can say the same. Every occuped planet will show a ferocious resistance and probably guerrilla problems, and kamikaze actions works surprisingly well with this race.[/b]
