Species Name: Ellerian Fusion
Former Homeworld: Elleria (Castor)
Genus: CyberFloral
Genesis: Castor's only dwarf planet (which is special in its own way) gave shelter to a peculiar kind of a plant: Elleriosa Transparere. A transparent plant that feeds off a very unusual light spectrum of their binary star. While fragile in nature, a singular specie of Elleriosa Transparere is able to store an enormous amount of photon energy which is released and dissipated throughout crystalline soil structure of its host planet in exchange for its nutrients. How and when Ellerian "flower" became sapient is unknown. But what is known that ever since the first primitive Ellerian tribes started to roam (by uprooting themselves and floating through thin air of Elleria from place to place) the universal knowledge of their race grew exponentially. At the time their society did not have a concept of conflict, currency or starvation. Elleria, Castor and its twin star supplied everything the society needed. Striving only to learn and understand the world around them they grew out of their planet ecosphere at the same time when an unknown origins spaceship crash-landed on Elleria taking out their third biggest colony in the process. The time of mourning and sorrow was short though - the desire to study the space apparatus overcame grief and the necessity to avoid overpopulation and coming starvation forced Ellerian best minds to dedicate themselves to reverse engineer the spaceship in order to leave the planet in search of a new colony planet.
Then unspeakable happened. That day became to be known as the day of Exaltation. Through the cracks of broken hull of the crashed ship volumes of glittering liquid sipped into soil of Elleria and through it into Ellerian bodies. It was studied and dissected quickly. It wasn't a liquid, but a swarm of silicone based nanites of unknown origin. Not only they were quickly determined to be harmless to Ellerian biology, but more than beneficial as the time passed by. In short span of time all the nanites that survived the crash integrated into Ellerian bodies increasing their biological attributes, doubling their mental and energy capacities. They started to change Ellerian body composition to the point when "infected" Ellerians started to be able to replicate the alien nanites to share them with the rest of the population. They became bigger, smarter and stronger. In about a solar year time Ellerians were unrecognizable from before. Their bodies changed to what they are right now - glowing transparent floral bodies eight feet tall with synthetic micro-robots running though their veins. The Ellerian Fusion was born. Their thought process evolved; they realized that there is more out there than living and breeding on Ellerian soil.
The day when the Ellerians built their first spaceship became the day of Ascension as they all directed their gaze to the stars and left Elleria in search of knowledge and technology to Transcend physical dimension - believed to be the third step in Ellerian evolution. They realized that they did not need to be planet bound anymore as their biology was nearly perfectly adapted to survive in a vacuum of space even without an exosuit. Not a single Ellerian is believed to be inhabiting any planet in the local galaxy quadrant today.
Current state of affairs: Traveling from star to star, using their energy to charge the ship's interstellar engine (if you could call it that as they themselves were part of that "engine" - but that's another story) they scavenged and recycled as much material as possible to sustain their nanite "blood" and evergrowing flotilla. Knowledge is power. They traded, bought and sold all kinds of data and quickly became a space force to not be fked with. They grasped the concept of War real quick. Their battle ships are known as Ellerian Slicer. Superfast and maneuverable it has plasma phase wings that spread out on both sides of the ship and could slice through other ships hulls like hot knife through butter. Their other ships ability was to change its and its crew dimensional phase to absorb incoming damage and use it to partially replenish the ships crew, recharge and even overcharge its batteries (which are the crew themselves - also another story). They have mastered interdimensional phasing at this point in time. The origins of Ellerian nanites are still unknown.
Meet Ellerians:
Oooo pretty..... they seem very gentle creatures. Primary attack sounds great, we do need a good close quarters ship. They should be quick and extremely agile.
I'm not a huge fan of absorbing weapon damage secondaries. Based on the images they feel more like the plant equivalent to the Syreen - like an Anglerfish using the pretty lights to lure crew from the opposing ship, allowing their biological material to be 'absorbed'. The alternative is to make it a grapple attack - allowing use on either the opposing ship or debris in the SM arena (varying buffs).
Overall, I like the race concept.
Two "new race submissions" from players, that could potentially wind up in the game...
This is starting to feel familiar, keep going in this direction Stardock. SVC's way. Your audience will love you for it;-)
@Inferno83 They only look fragile. They are super durable after their nanites "augmentation". They can temporarily emit a kinetic shield to protect themselves from incoming damage. Also, as I mentioned before, they, being floral in nature, consume and store sun energy in their bodies and can use it to rek havoc. They don't even have conventional weapons (pistols, cannons, lasers) in their civilization. Those transparent flaps can slice your nuts off without you even noticing for the first 10 seconds. While they don't move fast themselves, they can move their body parts real fast - to avoid incoming threats or attack. They rarely use it in offense though. They are still peaceful creatures, despite all the hostility in space.
@Kavik_Kang Are you gonna love them for it though?
Of course. It would be great to see a computer game company doing things the SVC/ADB way. Just like Steve Cole at ADB, Brad is "God" at Stardock, which is the best way for a game company to operate. Most game companies couldn't behave like that if they wanted to, the designer has to be the owner for that to be a possibility. Really, the designer has to be the owner to do this whole game design thing right. I'm pretty sure that Stardock is one of the only, if not the only, major maker of computer games that is owned by the designer.
That really is the only way to do it right, and a big part of the reason that Stardock's games always succeed.
The race is gorgeous, Hunam - and I can tell you put an extreme effort into developing a believable backstory. I love that they are COMPLETELY alien in every way. Nothing about them isn't foreign to us, and I especially love that they are light enough to float within their planet's atmosphere.
My favorite part, though is that you took the concept of photosynthesis to an extraordinary dimension by being able to store the photonic energy, not only to power themselves and their society - but to even charge their interstellar drives. Really creative stuff and quite fun.
I want to know why they even have spaceships at all - why construct these huge ships, when they can float through the vacuum of space? Tell me more!
From all the scavenger suggestions so far this seems the most unique race. Since light is one of the forms of matter we haven't used for aliens yet. I have to admit the idea is intriguing from the get go with an interesting ship design, cool looks and unique history. However on closer inspection I don't know a lot more. So it would be interesting to know what these creature's personality and motives are like during dialogue since this will be the main way we'll encounter them. And what will give them the depth for me to want to keep talking to them untill their dialogue runs out. Or would you like to reduce them to space merchants like the melnorme? Which would be a kind of a shame with a design as intriguing as them.
7/10 Shows lots of promise now you only need to use it as well.
I like these guys a lot, too.
Their mother-ship is their home now. It's a cybernetic core in a shell that all Ellerians "root" into to fuse their minds and bodies to "feed", do interstellar jumps and share knowledge and experiences with each other. Ellerians do not use hyperspace to travel between stars, but they do it by "phasing" out of physical dimension momentarily and propelling their mothership and themselves using stored energy in that state. Since they haven't mastered this technique to perfection, their interstellar jumps consist out of unimaginable amount of micro-jumps and a lot of energy is spent doing that. They are the most vulnerable right after such a jump. Fortunately the energy is easily replenished by a nearby star.
I purposefully didn't go into their social and emotional character detail as I want them to fit SCO lore, so it's left for Stardock to flesh out. And another reason is that I don't even know myself what they are like when you talk to them.
You're right, there can't just be millions of them floating around forever - and the individual absorption of the sun's energy would be greatly diminished, based on distance from the sun. The Mothership would actually serve as a conduit! Focusing the energy and storing it on a greater level than the individual's capabilities. This makes perfect sense, now. Thanks for the clarification.
Dude, this is GOOD. Maybe, if they're an enemy in the game, and must be destroyed (could their ship actually absorb the sun to death? That would give them a reason to be an enemy) - you'd have to devise a way to PULL THEM OUT OF HYPERSPACE. BEFORE THEY GET TO A SYSTEM. That's a perfect quest for the player - some sort of warp-interrupt that pulls them into real space, far away from the sun that replenishes their energy. Hah! You wouldn't even need to destroy them, you could just leave them stranded out there, and they can't hurt anyone anymore!
Hahahaha!! Why you wanna make my floaty dandelions a bad guy?... They are very neutral and they don't consume suns, but just recharge from them using photosynthesis type of deal. They also DO NOT use hyperspace (w/e the fk that is ), but they literally disappear from physical dimension to travel like that. Quasispace?
Also, SCO should get yours and mine scavangers races in and let them be in perpetual war, 'cause your Duck-Mi-Siks REALLY WANNA HARVEST my Ellerians nanites to finally make The Ultimately Ugly Space Cobra or TUUSC for short.
How about a variation on the secondary for the ships. Perhaps they can release a spore cloud which attaches itself to whatever is in the vicinity; either asteroids, gas clouds, or opposing ships. Undecided on what the spores would do - to ships act like a Chenjesu DOGI (replenishing the slicer) or VUX limpets (sitting duck for the phase wings), or possibly spawn more Ellerian crew for pick up after consuming asteroids. I could imagine tactics of seeding the surrounding asteroid fields with spores and using skirmish tactics before replenishing for the next wave.
If anyone hasn't seen it, check out FingersOfThem's race, as well. He includes the Sik-Mu-Thieln, the Ellerians and his own race, weaving a synergistic tapestry of death between the three. I think this needs to be included in the game!
Where does the image comes from?
I LOVE the idea!
;O damn
Really like this!
This was a great idea! Reminds me of the Supox but totally unique at the same time. Great creativity!
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