The Cielioid Philosopher

Subspecies Description

This subspecies of Cielioid has a larger than usual brain, and typically lacks reproductive organs.  After reaching maturity, Philosophers often undergo elective surgery in order to cripple themselves in some significant way, as learning to accept limitations is seen as beneficial to the contemplative life. For this reason, it is common to see this subspecies without eyes, or legless, or without vocal apparatus, or deaf, or without arms.

Philosophers tend to command positions of high respect and authority.  Many are high-ranking bureaucrats, leaders of the Official Schools of Philosophy, priests, or advisers to the Imperial Court.

Philosophers tend to live longer lives than most Cielioids, with an average lifespan around 250 years.

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The Cielioid Poet

Subspecies Description

The Poet subspecies of Cielioid was engineered to make leaps of creativity and intuition.  As a result, they spend much of their time in a twilight state between wakefulness and sleep.  Poets typically pursue careers in the arts.  Poets have two pairs of arms, one for fine manipulation and one for heavier lifting.  Poets also have two pairs of eyes, one for close detailed work, and the other for taking in broader vistas.

Early in the history of the Empire, there lived a great engineer and inventor, known as Kroah Dashan, who was from the “poet” subspecies of Cielioid, even though poets typically pursue careers in the arts, and most engineers come from the “Brain” or “Watchmaker” subspecies.  Kroah Dashan first developed many of the advanced technologies that enabled the Empire to grow, including  a version of the Entanglement device, and an improved spatial-compression device.  As a result, the government has been trying ever since to encourage poets to pursue careers in engineering with little success.

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The Cielioid Brain

Subspecies Description

Unlike the technological culture on Earth, the use of computers for mathematics and science took a long time to take root in the Empire of 1,000,000 Suns.  During the interim, Cielioids developed a subspecies capable of amazing feats of memory and mental calculation.  Humans frequently mistake these Cielioids for children, due to their large heads and diminutive stature.

Cielioid Brains can be found in any field of endeavor requiring intelligence, memory and reasoning ability.  They tend to have high status, directing the activities of less intelligent life-forms.

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Gorox

“Never trust an angry Gorox.” -Mohammed Barnes, imperial conscript

Description

The Gorox (the singular and plural forms of Gorox are the same) are an intelligent species from Dasa, a planet with a highly elliptical orbit.  Dasa only spends five years of its thirty year orbit in the habitable zone of its star, the rest of the time it spends beyond the frost line.  As a result, the Gorox spend most of their time hibernating.  When Gorox hibernate, they do so in underground dens, usually built underneath the houses they live in during the warm season.

Gorox are large (average height is around 2.5 meters), omnivorous mammal-like aliens.  Gorox have thick coats of fur that they shed at the end of their hibernation cycle, when their home-world starts to warm up, and gradually grow back as the warm period ends.  Gorox have somewhat shorter arms than a human of the same height, and their hands have three fingers plus a thumb, and each of their feet have four toes.

Gorox emerge from hibernation emaciated and hairless.  During their active cycle, they put on a substantial layer of fat and thick fur.

Language

The Gorox have a form of communication that is foreign to humans, based on blinking their eyes (Gorox have four eyes), in a fashion similar to semaphore.  One Gorox looks at another, and blinks/winks in a pattern that signifies meaning.  This even works in darkened environments, as most Gorox have slightly bioluminescent eyes.  This form of communication is believed to have developed significantly before spoken language in the Gorox.

Several spoken languages had developed when first contact was made with the Planetary League.  The Gorox had just begun to develop agriculture and cities, so their spoken and written languages existed only in a relatively simple state.  The only culture with a formal written language, also had the only significant city on Dasa, and was known as Sagokara.

The name "Gorox" comes from a slight modification of their name for themselves (pronounced "Gorokoso"), and Dasa is a direct transliteration of the local name for the Gorox home-world.

Reproduction and Life-cycle

The Gorox mating season (like that of the majority of life-forms on Dasa) happens shortly before hibernation begins.  The offspring gestate during hibernation in a pouch on the mother’s body.  During the pregnancy, the nervous systems of mother and child are directly connected, and the young emerge with a substantial fraction of their mother’s knowledge and memories.  Gorox spend one warm season as juveniles, gaining practical experience under the watchful gaze of their elders, but after their first hibernation are considered full adults. The lifespan of the Gorox is long by human standards.  A healthy Gorox can live more than 1,000 years.

Generally, when death (like birth) comes for the Gorox, it happens during hibernation.  Consequently, they have a deeply mystical view of this aspect of their lives.  Hibernation is both the undefined beginning and the unknowable ending of existence for the Gorox.  Due to the long time-frame of their lives and slow pace of their progress through history, the Gorox home-world has only one major city.  The center of the city is the city of the dead, where the homes of the deceased lie undisturbed, and the living reside around the edge of the city because that is where the available real-estate is.  Those who die during the active season are interred in their hibernation burrows, as it is the most natural place for the dead to reside in the Gorox world-view.

Cielioids

Description

Cielioids are the founding species of the Empire of 1,000,000 Suns, and until midway through Era-2, were the most common intelligent life-form in the galaxy.

Cielioid physiology is highly variable, due to an early mastery of genetic modification.  Most are plant-like humanoids.  They evolved from carnivorous plants on a planet where animal life only developed to the level of insects. The average height for the majority of Cielioids is around 2 meters, with some subspecies varying drastically.  Typically, each of a Cielioid's hands has two fingers and a thumb.  Their feet have no toes.  A Cielioid's mouth is covered with a chitinous beak.  They can mimic all the phonemes used by humans, and can produce sounds humans are physically incapable of.  Typically, the speech of Cielioids sounds like the chirping of a bird to human ears.   Cielioids have an internal skeleton composed of a tough wood-like tissue, and skin similar to that of an Aloe vera plant.

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Notable Subspecies

The Boxer is adapted to heavy labor and hand-to-hand combat.

The Brain is adapted for high intelligence and memory.

The Centaur is adapted to industrial work and carrying heavy burdens.

The Cielioid Grey is adapted to sanitation and waste collection.

The Philosopher is adapted to mindfulness and logic.

The Pilot is adapted to the operation of spacecraft.

The Poet is adapted to creativity and intuition.

Evolution

Cielioids evolved from a tumbleweed-like plant species.  Here is a brief evolutionary history of the Cielioid race.

Nutrition

 Their skin is typically slightly photosynthetic, and young Cielioids have vestigial root systems.  Despite this, Cielioids derive most of their nutrition from eating food.  Cielioids are omnivorous.

A Cielioid needs to breathe an atmosphere containing both Oxygen and Carbon-dioxide, because Cielioid metabolism has both plant-like and animal-like components.  These components do exchange by-products, which makes their metabolisms efficient and highly adaptable.  In a low-oxygen environment, a Cielioid will seek out light sources to stimulate photosynthesis, and in an environment with little carbon-dioxide, a Cielioid will tend to eat and exercise more to make up the difference.

Life-Cycle

After a Cielioid seed-pod is planted in the podding-ground, it is tended by caretakers as it matures over a period of months.  When the pod opens, the juvenile Cielioid is fully formed, but rooted to the ground, where it remains for several months before learning to walk.  The young Cielioid is watched over by the caretakers at the podding ground until it is old enough to start formal schooling, a couple years later.  School continues for a period of time, and in subjects both determined by subspecies.  Cielioids typically reach physical maturity in about fifteen years.  After finishing school, the Cielioid joins the workforce as an adult.  Cielioids typically live about one hundred fifty years, depending on subspecies. 

Going to root

“Going to root” is a rare phenomenon that happens when a Cielioid is under great stress, or occasionally brought on by old age.  They take root in the ground, and their skin turns woody, with branches growing out, rather like a tree. There is no known cure, but the Cielioid often retains some limited consciousness, and has a limited ability to hear and speak. Ceilioids who have gone to root will often live a longer lifespan, commonly surviving centuries in an immobile state.

Reproduction

 The Cielioid reproductive system is sexual, but nearly all Cielioids are hermaphrodites.  (Even so, self-pollination is rare.)  The pods on their torsos are essentially large seeds, and families plant these seeds in communal "podding grounds". 

Once a year (the year of the Cielioid home-world is around 500 Earth-days long) , adult Cielioids go into “Season”, when their pods are ready for pollination.  This state is visibly apparent, because their skin changes coloration.  This color change always happens in the area around the pods, but can extend over the entire body.  The colors and patterns Cielioids take on during their Season are genetically determined, and vary greatly by individual. (as a result of this feature of their biology, Cielioids have a sexual reaction to tie-dyed t-shirts)  

Cielioid "in season"

After their Season has passed, if one or more pods have been pollinated, the Cielioid loses their normal coloration, and becomes a “Pod bearer”, as the pod uses up the mother’s nutrients. The number of pods that get fertilized varies, but usually it is only one.  Some Cielioids have more than two seed-pod attachment points.  This is a special genetic modification for the children of individuals who have made some great achievement as a way to encourage them to have more offspring.  There are few things more attractive to Cielioids than the appearance of a long row of seed-pods down the torso of a prospective mate.  Ceilioids bearing more than two fertilized pods at once often suffer medical complications, and tend to need special medical attention.

The fertilized pod grows, attached to its mother for 2-3 months, until detaching, and being planted in the family Podding Ground.  The parent then regains a normal coloration, and over the course of the next year new pods grow to replace the old. If, at the end of the annual season, the pods haven’t been pollinated, they fall off, and new pods start to grow back in their place.  

pod-bearing Cielioid

After a certain age, Cielioids stop producing new pods.  The pollen producing organs are capable of producing pollen year-round throughout the adult life of a Cielioid.  

An important turning point in early Cielioid history was the time when they stopped relying solely on pollinating insects, and began mating directly.  This was shortly before the founding of the E1MS.  The idea of direct mating spread with the help of a famous painting, known as "The Touch" which depicted the practice, but was not considered explicit because it did not show the seasonal colors of either of the partners.  Cielioids tend not to view reproduction as obscene or dirty, and tend to treat it in a frank and forthright manner.

On rare occasions, two Cielioids become deeply emotionally attached to one another.  This is highly unusual, as Cielioids, as a species do not tend toward strong, passionate emotions.  In those cases when an emotional attachment develops, the pair often become "life-bonded".  This is both a social and a biological phenomenon.  Life-bonded couples have a chemical treatment administered by a doctor that synchronizes their seasons.  They live together, and spend much of their leisure time together.  Life-bonded Cielioids tend to live on the fringes of society, but most of the official schools of philosophy in the E1MS hold them in a special protected status.  As a result, most life-bonded Cielioids live the simple lives of devotees in monasteries.

Psychology and Emotion

Most Cielioids see themselves as members of their families and societies first and individuals somewhere after that. Individualism is a relatively rare motive among this species.

The range of emotions experienced by them runs the gamut from joy to rage to sorrow, the same as humans, although the things that bring these emotions on are substantially different.

When angered, or otherwise affected by strong emotion, some of the chromatophores that produce their “seasonal colors” will activate, particularly around their necks and faces.

Death

Cielioids typically bury their dead beneath their family's podding ground, if possible.  If it isn't possible, the dead are interred beneath public podding grounds set aside for orphans and outcasts.  In this way, the ancestors of the race become the nutritional feed-stock for the next generation.  The young of the family are generally taught about the lives and histories of the more notable ancestors buried beneath their podding ground by their caretakers. "You have grown from the soil of your ancestors!", is a compliment frequently paid to young Cielioids.  Cielioids live highly individual lives after reaching maturity, and as a result mourning and grief are minimal.  Friends and acquaintances may gather for an informal get-together to commemorate the deceased.  The size and scope of this gathering is typically directly proportional to the deceased's status in society.