The Confederation Handbook (14 page)

Rubra also opened the
habitat to immigration by “people who seek cultural and
religious freedom,â€

The Tyrathca were discovered
in 2395 on Hesperi-LN, a planet 227 light-years from Earth. They are
not indigenous, since their home planet, Mastrit-PJ, is on the other
side of the Orion Nebula, and not visible from the Confederation.
According to the Tyrathca themselves, their sun expanded into a red
supergiant 14,500 years ago. Breeder pairs left the star system on
several hundred slower-than-light arkships (the exact number is
unknown), 15,000 years ago. These arkships were hollowed-out
asteroids capable of reaching 15 percent lightspeed. Their aim was to
establish as many Tyrathca colonies as possible. It is not known how
many colonies were actually established, but the arkship
Tanjuntic-RI, which founded the Hesperi-LN colony, had stopped in at
least five other systems to land breeder pairs on Tyrathca-compatible
planets, and had examined some thirty further star systems via remote
probes.

Hesperi-LN was the last
colony established by Tanjuntic-RI. After 13,000 years in flight, and
despite constant refurbishment and resupply in the star systems it
examined, the arkship had reached the end of its useful lifetime, and
Hesperi-LN was established inAD 1300.

Taking the flight of 300
arkships which left Mastrit-PJ into account, and assuming each of
them was as successful as Tanjuntic-RI in locating new planets, the
Tyrathca race may now be spread throughout a sphere of space at least
4,200 light-years in diameter, with perhaps as many as 1,500 colony
worlds. Since acquiring human FTL technology, the Hesperi-LN colony
has not bothered to contact any other sibling colony (see
Psychology,
page 226
), a
situation which both human and other xenoc members of the
Confederation are quietly content with. They evidently evolved quite
late in Mastrit-PJ’s geological history. It may be that their
planet possessed a Venus-type reducing atmosphere for several billion
years, which didn’t alter until the sun began to cool. Records
of their history are very fragmented, and they show no real interest
in their own past (see Psychology,
page 226
).

Arkship
Technology

The arkships employed fusion
drive, with a deuterium reaction used to accelerate the vehicle up to
15 percent lightspeed. Three separate biosphere chambers were built
in each arkship, each of them with independent systems in case of an
accident.

The Tyrathca controlled their breeding on board, so that no stress
was ever placed on the ships’ internal resources. Arkships
carried a maximum of 25,000 breeder pairs, with as many as 60,000
members of the vassal caste. The arkship fleet was equipped with
communication lasers, which were used regularly in the first 2,000
years of the exodus, exchanging technical and planetology data. After
this, the fleet became so dispersed that communication between ships
began to fall off. Today it has ceased altogether.

Tyrathca
Physiology (Breeding Pairs)

The Tyrathca have a standard
biochemical arrangement: their cells contain organelles and a
nucleus, and their DNA is a double helix; they digest protein for
energy, and they breathe oxygen. They possess a large number of
organs with varying filtering and corpuscular production functions,
giving a Tyrathca a highly complex internal layout.

The Tyrathca has an
ochre-colored hide which, although harder than animal skin, is not
quite an exoskeleton; it is quite similar to scales, but also very
flexible. A coating of dry ochre-gold dust, similar to a terrestrial
moth, is exuded from this hide, leaving sprinklings of it wherever
the Tyrathca walks. Its main body is horizontal, 2m long, with four
legs that keep the underbelly 1.4m above ground level, and a
tapering, meter-long neck which curves up towards the vertical.

The head is a 50cm-high egg shape, tilted backwards at about 10°.
It has a flattish face with a broad mouth at the bottom, and two eyes
but no nose, all its breathing being done through the mouth, and the
olfactory receptors double as tastebuds. The mouth has a double-lip
arrangement; each segment is solid, so the lips are not flexible like
human lips. The first (outer) set of visor-like lips part for
breathing, the second (inner) lips open for eating, so the first pair
are constantly in motion. The scaly hide covering the rest of the
head is slightly furry. The crest of the head rises 2.9m above the
ground.

The Tyrathcas’ method
of communication is vocal, consisting of high-pitched whistles. These
are produced in a tubular pipelike organ located between the two
jaws, through which air is expelled from the lungs. This whistling is
very fast and complex, and while a Tyrathca cannot make human vocal
sounds, humans cannot reproduce the Tyrathcas’ whistle either,
so all inter-species communication needs to be conducted through an
electronic interpreter. On either side of the neck, just below the
head itself, there are two small teats with the vassal-caste chemical
program secretion glands behind them. Both male and female breeder
Tyrathca possess these.

A spine ridge runs down the back of the neck and along the center of
the torso to the rump, and it sprouts hair in a similar fashion to a
mane, This hair can be brown, ochre, rust-red or black. Aside from
the four legs, there are two arm-analogue limbs extending from the
base of the neck, where it merges with the body. These arms are thin
but stronger than their human equivalent, and they have one elbow
joint, which can hinge at almost 200°. Each hand is completely
circular, with nine fingers spaced equidistantly around it. The
“wristâ€

Mastrit-PJ

The Tyrathca home system is
2,300 light-years from Earth, hidden behind the Orion Nebula (itself
1,500 light-years away from Earth), which extends thirty light-years
across.

Mastrit-PJ’s star
expanded into a red supergiant 14,500 years ago, with a radius of
420m km in diameter, engulfing all the planets which originally
orbited it.

Early
History

One of three sentient races
to evolve on Mastrit-PJ, the Tyrathca were in fact the last to
achieve sentience.

Ridbat

The first species to evolve
were the Ridbat, whose civilization flourished a million years ago.
They were smaller than the Tyrathca, with a flattened ovoid body, 1m
high, 1.3m in diameter, and had four legs and four arms emerging in
pairs on opposite sides of the body. There was a slim neck at the
upper center of the body, with a rounded, wedge-shaped head and two
large eyes allowing 300° vision.

The Ridbat eventually
developed a high-technology civilization, establishing colonies on
several moons and planets in the system. Although one attempt was
made to bioform a Mars-like world, the project was never completed.
All their other colonies were either domed or underground.

The Ridbat were a very clan-orientated species, which gave them a
high aggression factor. Their various nations were engaged in
near-constant disputes, two of which resulted in the use of nuclear
weapons on the planetary surface.

The total duration of their
civilization (measured since the point of emerging from the
hunter-gatherer stage into the farmer-builder stage) was around
15,000 years, 9,000 of which were pre-industrial. Their internal wars
delayed any industrial development considerably, the population being
repeatedly culled by military action. As a consequence their
planetary population never rose above 500,000,000.

Major (industrial-era) wars
knocked their global technology base back from advanced
electronic-cybernetic to basic electrical-mechanical on at least
three separate occasions. Apart from the deployment of military spy
satellites and orbital weapons platforms, spaceflight was limited.
They only used interplanetary spaceflight during their third
industrial era. This was a period lasting nearly 700 years, and the
most prosperous they ever enjoyed. It ended with a nuclear war on the
planet itself, and the destruction of its offworld colonies. The
Ridbat never attempted interstellar flight.

Their fourth, and last,
industrial era was ended by the release of several biological weapon
agents which wiped them out, along with 70 percent of the animal life
existing on the planet at that time.

Little else is known about
them.

Mosdva

The Mosdva were the second
sentient species to emerge, and they still survive. The Mosdva has a
flexible body 2m long, with an oval cross-section 75cm deep at the
center. There are six limbs, paired equidistantly along the body. The
hide is composed of a variety of hard scales (similar to the Tyrathca
themselves) and is dark brown in color. The head is pointed, with two
eyes and a beak mouth, and the neck looks different from the rest of
the body by reason of the heavy wrinkles, which provide it with
increased flexibility. Each limb is 1.5m long, with a ball-and-socket
“shoulderâ€

Jobis

The Kiint homeworld, Jobis,
is 187 light-years from Earth, with an F2 star and 1.2 (Earth
standard) gravity. It was discovered in 2356, and the Kiint race
joined the Confederation in 2357. The Kiint are unique, out of all
the technologically advanced xenoc species encountered so far by
humans, in that they have no real interest in starflight (see
Psychology,
page 251
).

Physiology

The Kiint are physically
impressive, and are the largest sentient species in the
Confederation. They are oxygen-breathers, with a standard
biochemistry and cellular composition. Although the female gestates
the fetus in her womb, they are not strictly mammals, and their blood
temperature does not remain constant, but serves as a coolant fluid
dissipating body heat through the hide.

They have been sentient for
at least 200,000 years, and their organs and cells are highly
evolved, with an efficiency several times greater than humans’.
Part of their musculature is tractamorphic, with cells able to expand
or contract, and in some cases twist. The Kiint body is 9–10m
long, 3m broad, and covered by a white hide. It has eight legs, all
equally thick and 2m long, resembling those of an elephant. Despite
their bulk, their tractamorphic muscles give them considerable
agility, so they can run swiftly, although they do not accelerate
easily. The neck is inclined upwards to raise the crown of the head
slightly above the main body.

The Kiint has a very wide
face, with a central ridge dividing it into two planes. It has two
eyes halfway up the face, and a series of six breathing vents are
positioned below the eyes on either side of the central ridge, angled
downwards, with furry fringes undulating constantly to act as dust
and particle filters. The base (chin) of the head is slightly
pointed, like a beak section for the mouth, and there are two other
hinged beak sections behind it. The ears consist of long triangular
membranes situated above and behind the eyes.

The Kiint’s arms are
tentacle-like appendages emerging at the base of the neck; composed
almost entirely of tractamorphic muscle cords, they can assume a
variety of shapes. Hand-analogues on the ends of these resemble large
pods of flesh when inert, but are freeforming and able to produce
fingers, suction cups, pincers, etc., within a considerable size
range. This enables the Kiint to perform the most delicate kind of
manipulation as well as feats of brute strength.

The Kiint are herbivores,
and seem able to digest a wide range of xenoc plants. Because of
their size, they generate a great deal of body heat, and so prefer a
cool (temperate) climate. When working in tropical climates, they
wear jackets woven with thermal-duct fibers to keep them cool. Jobis
has a 1.2 gravity field, and a 27- hour day; the year is 420 (local)
days long. The star is an F2 type.

The Kiint can adapt to
terracompatible environments easily. Their life expectancy is
unknown, since the Kiint are not forthcoming on such personal topics.
They possess an ability similar to the Edenist affinity. This mode of
communication has long since supplanted their voices, and they no
longer retain the ability to make sounds. All Jobis animal life seems
to participate in this Kiint affinity to some degree.

It is apparent that the flora and fauna of Jobis have undergone
considerable modification. The planet’s biosphere is remarkably
benign. The animals are nonaggressive (though none of them has been
raised to sentience), and the plants are mostly nutritional. To what
degree the Kiint have modified themselves can only ever be
speculative.

Psychology

The Kiint do display a
recognizable emotional range, although all their responses seem
milder than among their human equivalents. While they are undeniably
more intelligent than humans, the Kiint do not possess the same
curiosity about the physical universe—or at least they no
longer display this characteristic. They have already achieved a
level of technology exceeding that of humans (and also the Tyrathca),
and have subsequently replaced scientific research with philosophical
and cultural development.

Their sole interest in the
Confederation seems to be in the opportunity it provides to them for
observing other sentient entities, though the amount of actual
observation which could be undertaken by the few ambassadors they
have dispatched elsewhere must be very limited. This lack of
curiosity about external affairs is perhaps best demonstrated by
their absence of interest in starflight. The few Kiint ever to
discuss the subject claim that they themselves experienced an
extensive starflight era 130,000 years ago, but one they abandoned
once they had reached their technological zenith. For once mastery of
their physical environment was achieved, they saw no reason to
explore the universe further, since all they ever encountered were
variants on the same themes, in both life and cosmology.