The Eaxaw

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Nightfish
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The Eaxaw

#1 Post by Nightfish »

The Eaxaw (by Impaler)

Introduction

The Eaxaw are a Race of Evil Amazonian Xenophobic Aggressive Worms. Approximately 600 years ago a Derelict ship adrift since the time of the Orion’s crashed on their Home World Elli. The Eaxaw were at that point a pre-industrial civilization and the artifact amazed and frightened them. A few select members of their society were able to learn some of the artifacts secrets and it revealed to them a realm beyond the surface of their world. They deduced that the ship was produced by another Race of non Ellian creatures. All this was quite at odds with their rigid belief system and it didn’t help that being a Subterranean race they perceived the surface as a bad and things beyond the surface must their for be even worse. Their Great Matriarchal Council soon issued its greatest Proclamation "All of this must Go!" they have thus dedicated themselves to "Family Values, Prosperity and the Complete Annihilation of all other Life Forms"

Home World

The Planet Elli an un-named White Hot star. The Eaxaw never named the star because they fell that nothing beyond the sub-surface of their world is deserving of a name, this includes other Races. The planet is smaller then Earth with a thinner atmosphere composed of Nitrogen, Methane, Oxygen, Carbon Monoxide and Ozone. Surface Temperate is on average slightly warmer then Earth but Fluctuates widely do to the fact Elli has an extremely slow rotation. Day and Night each last 11.8 Earth Days. The Entire surface of Elli is covered in hundreds of meters of thick dense Soil and Vegetation, Oceans are absent and it never rains as all the planets moisture is contained in the Soil.. Organic Molecules on Elli are very stable and resistant to break down due to adaptations to the high-energy wavelength of light from the Parent Star and the high temperature flux. Thus Decomposition is extremely slow and decomposing material has accumulated to incredible Depths. In most places the surface of the soil is difficult to distinguish as their is a uniform increase in Darkness and Density as one descends through the Canopy of thorny plants and down into tangles of roots fungus and tunnels. The lower reaches of this decomposition symphony are the habitat of the Eaxaw. They are most comfortable at 600-800 meters depth below the uppermost canopy ware they experience highly stable temperatures. In fact they are highly sensitive to temperature and are thus unable to survive at the surface.

Physical Description

The Eaxaw have 3 body forms. One is the mature adult Female Form, the other the intermediate Male form and the lastly the newborn larval form. All forms are completely blind and use touch, smell, hearing and a sensitivity to electric currents to explore their world. The Female form most closely resembles a segmented worm approximately 8 meters long and half a meters in Diameter. At the Front is located the 3 beaked mouth which is able to swallow object as wide as the body. Females variously consume roots, fungus and any smaller organisms them can find. They also dig extensive tunnel system, the inner wall of which they line with Cementing glue they excrete from the tip of the tail. A second secretion can dissolve the first to allow them to expand the tunnel network. The Female forms internal anatomy is rather simple. A wide gullet lined with hair fills the length of the body. The hairs are part of the respiratory system which takes in Carbon Monoxide and expels Carbon Dioxide, they find Oxygen to be poisonous as it so readily bonds with the same absorption Proteins and blocks proper breathing, fortunately oxygen is absent at their depth A half dozen small chambers along the track break down and absorb nutrients. All the while air is passing down the track and this serves to both catalyze the digestion reaction and for the individual to breath the Carbon Monoxide given off by the digested material.

The Neural Network of the Female is distributed along 8 Chains of neural nodes that run the length of the body evenly distributed around the circumference of the body. Most of the rest of the Body is musculature, the armored outer body segments provide support. These outer segments have a small overlap much like a Scale, under each of these overlaps their is a brood Cavity in which larva like off spring are grown. Each female has around 200 such cavities and they can be fertilized individually.

The Male form is the first stage of life for all newborn Eaxaw. They mature rapidly from their Larval birth form and are feed and cared for by older males. A fully developed male is 1.3 meters long and has a more lobster like body then the worm like female. A male has ten legs measuring half a meter in length, the legs terminate in small grasping claws which give them excellent grip and far better climbing ability then Females. At the end of the Males tale is a complex Grasping Claw that comes in huge and astonishingly specialized varieties. Some are adapted for fine and dexterous manipulation some incorporate chemical sensors or textured skins others have variations on the number of pincers and their ranges of motion. These hind-claw variations are also notable because they are practically the only differences between males, almost all other genetic traits are suppressed until the female stage. Males are also rather dim witted having only a fraction of the Females Nural mass though it is distributed in a similar fashion to the females. They are able to perform simple tasks and retain their memories when they metamorphose into Females, analytical skills are completely absent they function mostly on instinct and female orders delivered by Pheromones and electrical shock. The male internal anatomy is quite different from the females, respiration is conducted through the outer skin which is not as heavily armored, digestion is of a more delicate nature in a single gut cavity. Males can consume only a few of the less toxic forms of fungus in stark contrast to the female. The male also has a smaller version of the three part beak found on the female, males also have a single long antenna sprouting out of the back near the front of the body which they use to sense their surroundings.

Social Structure

Eaxaw are organized into matriarchal breeding groups. A female will keep at all time a large "harem" of approximately 200 mature males which protect, feed and mate with her. Any new males that the female births will be added to the Harem and protected by the mature males in it. When ever the group encounters another female and her males their will most often be a friendly exchange of mature males between the groups. This ensures genetic diversity and promotes a wide variety of males to perform specialized tasks. The males rapidly adjust to their new homes and protect their new Matriarch as they did their previous one. All social interaction is female to female as they engage in Semi-Feudalistic Neo-Corporate alliances and power hoarding, females also perform all research with assistance from specialized "Lab assistant" males. Younger females typically pledge allegiance to older females and trade specialized males they produce in exchange for protection, contracts and other services. Males in essence serve as the currency of their society with the unique Hind-Claw of the male determining its value. Some males such as those specialized and trained to perform valuable like Nano Chip fabrication are far more valuable then those that perform menial task such as Telephone Cleaning. The highest ranking Females (having the largest most diverse Harems and sworn subordinate females) form the Great Matriarchal Council which set the global agenda for the Eaxaw and enforce Family Values and seek to eliminate Vices such as laziness, male thought and most especially All other life forms in the Universe.


Reproduction

When a female Eaxaw has available brood Cavities and sufficient food resources available she will select 1 or more males to mate with her. She will chose those that have the highest value and likelihood of producing valuable trading males. The male fertilizes the females Brood Cavities individual using a glad located on its belly. A flat fluk like 6 inch long Larval Eaxaw will emerge approximately 80 days later. Several will hitch rides on a mature male and be feed by it for about 1 year before they are large enough to travel unaided. Once a male has mated with a female it will undergo a metamorphosis into female form. At first the male retreats from the rest of the group and begins to grow larger. Its legs shrivel and its body Elongates, during this period the male is highly vulnerable to predators to too its lack of protectors or armor and many die before completing the metamorphosis. After 3 weeks the male looks very female on the outside but has not taken on the internal female anatomy. For this to happen the male goes into a state of hibernation for an additional week at the end of which its internal structures have been completely altered. Now the newly "born" female starts to give birth to male clones of here self until she has acquired males by trading..



Racial Bonuses

High Production/Manufacturing

Caste system

Environmentally Sensitive/intolerant

Horrible Diplomacy

Fudal/Corporate Government

Fundamentalist Belief system

Good Ground Defense and Resistant to Bombardment

Poor Ground attack

Bonus Maximum population due to Thick Soil

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Zanzibar
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#2 Post by Zanzibar »

again, good job on this race. Please don't delete the thread again!! Anyhow... something else they should have: Artifact homeworld/possibly the wrecked ship is an X?? (They would need to build surface habitation modules, orion research centers, and environmental suits to properly research it). Also this should provide certain other advantages before the X is fully researched like, they could get faster engines early in the game, because they are basing thier designs on what they found in the ship. This of course, leads them to have imitative research (they just do it really well and really fast...)

Impaler
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#3 Post by Impaler »

I imagined that the ship penatrated to a considerable depth when it crashed (infact some of them many have been killed by the crash, further giveing the outside world a bad reputation). Deep enough for them to access durring the twilight hours when the temperature is milder. They already had moderatly sophisticated tecnology but because of their never reaching the surface and the fact their blind they had no notion of the "sky" or anything beyond the surface. The tecnology of the ship made this detectable for the first time. We want the game to start with all of that alredy having transpired. So logicaly they have already gained what every advantage the ship could provide. Also the ship is not nessarily SUPER sophisticated, just cause its from the time of the Orions dose not mean its an Orion Ship.
Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune

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Zanzibar
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#4 Post by Zanzibar »

Ok well, it's still an aritifact... so it should provide some bonus... ;)

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utilae
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#5 Post by utilae »

Maybe it makes them 'wake up' and decide to explore space rather than stay away from it. Also maybe it leads them to discover space technology.

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Zanzibar
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#6 Post by Zanzibar »

As I said, some bonus to thier tech... *shrug* And since they have imitative research, this means they must capture or somehow obtain an enemy's ship/technology before thier research can take off... For example, maybe the derelict only had plasma cannons, a mark V battle computer, deutrium fuel cells, deutrium warp reactor, titanium armor, class 3 shields, and a shuttle pod. Now, advances to those techs could be researched and maybe a few techs based on combining some of the elements of these techs (example: class 3 planetary shields from the ship shields could be researched, but photon torpedoes can't be, as there weren't any on the ship...). Anyhow, just some thoughts about this.

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utilae
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#7 Post by utilae »

Maybe they get a free 'ship wreckage' special at the start of the game, giving them some early to mid game tech.

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Zanzibar
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#8 Post by Zanzibar »

Well, somethin' like that to make up for thier "copy-cat" research :)

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Krikkitone
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#9 Post by Krikkitone »

Couple of points. The atmosphere is probably Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Ozone with a dash of CO2 like ours above, but down below is where it is

CO, Methane, and CO2, no O2 or O3 (never do you get Methane or CO and Oxygen or Ozone in the same atmosphere)

They probably have to eat fairly vast amounts of food to feed anaerobically, and some of their waste is probably methane as well.

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Zanzibar
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#10 Post by Zanzibar »

Probably... I just like the "Oxygen intolerant" trait... makes things... interesting, and definitely alien :)

Probably could add some unrest for NOT being at war... (hey... these guys wanna destroy everything!!) ;)

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Krikkitone
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#11 Post by Krikkitone »

Actually probably better to have unrest for being at any kind of peace with aliens. (which means you should develop more than you expand because each First Contact means a new front.)

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#12 Post by EntropyAvatar »

Krikkitone wrote:Actually probably better to have unrest for being at any kind of peace with aliens. (which means you should develop more than you expand because each First Contact means a new front.)
Ah, the old counter-intuitive outcome.

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Krikkitone
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#13 Post by Krikkitone »

Actually, its not counter intuitive after all the people that the Eaxaw are most modeled after didn't expand at all, they only developed, and then smashed everyone they found.

Just make sure no smashed supercomputers are involved, and I'm sure they're safe though. (actually a really good job with a unique biology, and much better reason than a dust cloud)

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Zanzibar
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#14 Post by Zanzibar »

Yeah... I rather liked the way my idea mutated into 'em... ;)

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Zanzibar
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#15 Post by Zanzibar »

Discovery of an Eaxaw colony by humans.

Image

Used pov-ray for background and wormish thing, DOGA L2 for the ship and space-suited humans, and GIMP to put it all together!! :)

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