Kidan
The Kidan Race Name: Kidan (Singular) Kida (Plural). Are ant-like creatures who posses an exoskeleton.
Mechanics
- 30 Karma cost
- They do not posses their own unique language.
- All Kida have claws, and will scratch with them instead of punching, dealing extra damage.
- Kida cannot wear glasses.
- Kida have natural armor, roughly equivalent to a riot shield.
- Due to their natural armor, attempts to grab and shake a kidan awake can fail.
- They can consume Diona Nymphs, alive or dead.
Overview
Naming
Heraldry naming scheme (used by nobles for flashy entrances and other such dramatic things): Individuals are generally named according to ancient conventions. That is, names consisting of syllables given in layers, starting first with the occuption, then the name of their family, or, 'house', then their given name, and finally their private name. Their private name was more of a nickname and only known to close working buddies or friends. The name went as follows. Occupation > House > Given > Nickname; -- in recent years, this is used as a brevity code for identifying themselves via their banner, over radio.
Peasant/everyday naming scheme: A sort of 'buggy' sounding name like 'Koz' or 'Zaz' or 'Zhar' with a corresponding pheromone signature, optionally represented by describing the smell of such in either flavor text or as a surname, for example: 'Zaz [light, fruity]' (note that not everything is one big culture over in Bugtown, so names can and will sound vastly different from eachother across planets and even in different regions of the homeworld.)
Biology
Kida DO have blood, and organs, though a slightly more distributed vascular system with several smaller hearts throughout the body, which means internal damage may be less likely to kill them, but bleeding out may be more of a danger. Most medicines work similarly on them as with other species, exempting Inaprovaline.
Inaprovaline and every drug with inaprovaline as a component have been known to produce a euphoric high, causing access to Inaprovaline while working for Human companys or in Human space to be generally restricted, to the point Nanotrasen forbids them to carry it on their person unless their job requires it. Addictions and general recreational usage of Inaprovaline has become common on the Homeworld and Colonies, due to it having no known side effects.
Physically speaking, they are about 1.5-2.5 meter-tall hard-shelled arthropods, generally with a dull-colored carapace, though bright splotches are not uncommon depending on colony. They have large, compound eyes and long, segmented antenna with which they sense things. They have two long, upper limbs which serve as arms, and two long lower limbs which serve as legs, though their third set of limbs are generally neatly tucked away against their carapce, as they've become vestigial over time. Wings are uncommon but not unheard of, and are always able to be folded away. The ability to actually fly is rare, however.
Kidan eyesight is extremely sensitive, from across the room, they will be able to count pores on a human, or see fleas in a dog's fur. As you leave the front of them, they quickly lose resolution and drop off until something standing to their side will be an indistinct blur. Kidan eyes are also highly sensitive to bright lights, preferring to keep their homes and workplaces slightly dimmer than humans prefer, and bright flashes causing great pain. Military Kida and Kidan workers tend to wear protective films over their eyes in most situations.
Kidan eyes are too large and sensitive to wear anything to the effect of glasses, goggles or HUDs.
Their native language is a series of clicks, buzzes, head, antennae movements, and pheromones, however they can mimic human speech (barely) using clicks and buzzes drawn out into words, with antenna use for emphasis and indicating emotion, this causes Human speech to appear rather blunted to them, due to the lack of olfactory and movement use. Due to them being mostly unable to use tone, their speech appears almost perpetually friendly, dispite what they may mean to say. -- this causes Z, and V noises to be slightly elongated, as well as a general buzzy tone. S sounds are difficult to seperate from Z noises, as well as C noises.
Alcohol is a little bit like drinking water; their bodies can break it down very easily and it doesn't intoxicate. Something about chocolate, however, does cause intoxication, not unlike alcohol causes it in humans. Caffeine is dangerous in large quantities, the amount of caffeine in one cup of shipboard coffee (it being super-charged as it is) is legitimately dangerous if consumed and not treated right away, but a cup of soda, or tea, or any number of other traditionally caffeinated beverages might only cause damage over the long term.
Feet are plantigrade, but with two claws coming out of the front and one on the back, giving their feet the ability to grasp like hands, though without anything comparative to thumbs. They are able to fit these into shoes, though uncomfortable. Sandals and boots are more common.
As far as temperature tolerance, very cold temperatures cause them to become sluggish, eventually just laying down to die. Very high temperatures cause them to work faster and faster until their bodies cease to function from exertion or overheating.
Language
Their native language is a series of clicks, buzzes, head, antennae movements, and pheromones, however they can mimic human speech (barely) using clicks and buzzes drawn out into words, with antenna use for emphasis and indicating emotion, this causes Human speech to appear rather blunted to them, due to the lack of olfactory and movement use. Due to them being mostly unable to use tone, their speech appears almost perpetually friendly, dispite what they may mean to say. -- this causes Z, and V noises to be slightly elongated, as well as a general buzzy tone. S sounds are difficult to seperate from Z noises, as well as C noises.The Kidan written language consists of woven strands of fabric of various colors, which come together to form words.
Culture
Important ships and structures are generally named after large historical events that have happened to the people as a whole. Slightly less important ships and structures may be named after more local events. For example: Exploration ship named, "First Contact", or an infrastructure project named, "That Party; Last Tuesday"
Planets are generally named after the first noble that has arrived upon it. Unnamed planets are marked with a letter, and star systems are named by a compound name of every settled planet, as well as the number of planets total. Unnamed planets are named with a lowercase letter, similar to how unnamed moons are handled in certain settings. EX: "Qraz III a" would be the gas giant on the edge of the Kidan home-system.
Their history is maintained not only through normal methods (books, written accounts, electronic storage) but also culturally through songs and tapestries, as with humans. Families are responsible for their own records, generally, and will make their own tapestries and keep their songs written either on hard copies or electronically someplace in the home. It's considered a pretty huge blow to lose your house histories, and the oldest ones have items dating back hundreds of years. Generally, tapestries will be imprinted with perfumes or pheromones as an olfactory component.
Kidan art generally consists of either drawn, painted, or woven art pieces with an olfactory and sound component, or large performance pieces somewhere between an opera and a play, with loud music, strong smells, lots of movement and many, many performers involved at once in an intricate display.
Religion varies wildly between colonies, due to long periods of seperation, however they can all be traced down to the original myths on the homeworld, in which a group of spirits embodying various elements came together and pooled their power, building the world from nothing and creating everything in it. The names of these spirits vary wildly, between cities, planets, and systems. The names are almost never constant, but generally similar. Some myths even have the parts of the spirits filled by historical figures, or great leaders. This shows best the very healthy respect that the populace has for their ancestry.
Home Planet
The main government is largely controlled by a restricted cabal of nobles. Early in their history, the Kida have utilized observation of primitive insect hives with clearly defined hierarchies to build their own system of government with the nobles at the top. As a result of this, only the offspring directly produced by the nobility are considered worthy of any redeeming social value. Through the many years this system has been in place, it has strengthened and become the core, causing for non-noble larvae to generally be shunned by the nobility.
Under this government, the population of the home world is mostly subjugated. The organized leadership and strong loyalty has caused a sort of willing serfdom, though relating more so to a form with cities, where the non-nobility work upon the land and pay the land-owners, who are usually nobles, for the privilege. The majority of the race is controlled by this fashion.
Asteroid mining is widespread within the homeworld system, with the previous colonial ships mostly being refitted for the purpose. As for the homeworld planets, the luxury goods and industrialism is what fuels the majority of the output, processing these raw goods into fine ones.
Technology
The technology of the Kida race is slightly behind that of the human one, barring specific advancements in space-faring technology. Most notable among these is cheap Faster Than Light travel, which warp gates are capable of replicating but not perfecting. Bluespace is an exciting, unheard of new field to Kida researchers.
Kida robotics and cybernetic technology has become especially advanced within the last fifteen years, due mostly to the Faezh IX colony's advancements in automation, and sentient machines imported from this colony oversee and perform most production and labor work outside of the homeworld and loyalist colonies.
The kida, lacking a proper system of simple Faster Than Light travel, use mostly propulsion engines or a few sets of warp gates that have been constructed in order to travel between the worlds.
Ten colonies have been formed so far, but there is a current ongoing program to form more. Sleeper ships, preceded by long-range sensor ships, have been sent out from the home system and a few of the auxiliary systems. The goals of expanding are mostly for monetary gain for the home worlds and the governing body, so that they may get even more lavish treatment. r Most of their transportation of peoples and goods is done through an extremely inefficient system. Mass drivers shoot materials and cargo into orbital stations around the planets, and then are transported between planets and gates with carefully measured solid fuel rockets. While it is precise, it isn't quite precise enough, and so as a result quite a few of the planetary bodies are in danger of Kessler Syndrome from the spent stages. This is where the debris in space is too thick to properly pass into it. There are ongoing discussions within the homeworlds on how this may be rectified.
Ship to ship combat tends to be long and tedious, performed at long and close ranges with heavy rail cannons and swarms of unguided rockets, timed or proximity. Boarding is entirely impractical, due to Kidan shipwrights not being skilled enough to design hulls capable of withstanding the force of crashing into another ship. As a result of this, the preferred result of any combat within space is complete and utter destruction to the enemy.
Defensive tech tends to be overlooked, not going much more advanced than simple point defense cannons to counteract the long range missiles, as well as inert chaff fired off to intercept via kinetic force any missiles coming in.
EVA tech has been developed, but is not fairly advanced. The Kida are capable, however, of wearing human soft-suits so long as they are of the proper size. Hard-suits, on the other hand, tend to be very uncomfortable. The race's own native suits are essentially body-gloves, insulating them from pressure and heat while managing to allow for excellent maneuverability. Said suits, however, are completely lacking in armor.
Ground combat is performed in a similar method to the humans WWI, trench warfare, artillery, and mass infantry charges, though this seems rather primitive at first, it has been proven to work for the Kida. Orbital strikes are unheard of, as their current weapons are unable to perform accurate Space to Ground strikes.
Ancient History
To this date star cartographers debate the correct name of the Kidan and Dionaea home world.Aurum, as the Kidan call it, has been the sight of over one hundred thousand years of primordial conflict. From natures first inception, before even the spark of sentience graced either of them; The Kidan have preyed upon the Dionaea and the Dionaea have adapted. This endless pull of active evolutionary stimuli ultimately led to the Dionaea evolving their Gestalt Biomasses, a singular entity that could ultimately escape into space, away from the Kidan, true apex predators of Aurum.
As the Dionaea fled to the stars in their exodus the Kidan slowly grew to master what was now their planet. Yet the loss of the Dionaea was not without effect. Billions died as nearly every hive soon collapsed upon itself from pressures outside and within. During this dark age technological progress was all but halted yet a discovery would herald a golden age for their entire species. Around 2173 Plasma was discovered within the depths of Aurum. Historical geographic data would eventually reveal that during the planets creation in the fiery crucible of the solar system, a small, plasma-rich moon collided with Aurum, seeding the planet with the valuable mineral. Accidentality exposed, the hives females soon showed signs of sever mutation and heightened aggression towards other females. Leading to many of their deaths.
Yet those that survived were forever changed into hulking leaders of their people, leading to the emergence of the first Kidan Empresses, extremely powerful psionics who possessed perfect genetic memory of uncountable epochs before them steered their species towards the stars to escape the doom that would find them if they stayed. Within twenty years of this discovery the Kidan went from a barely industrialized species to leading their space programs in their infancy. Meticulously they consumed their star system before finally developing rudimentary warpgate space drives and casting themselves to the unknown voids of space for ever more resources to sustain their massive populations.
First Contact
As their journey of the stars unfolded first contact was made roughly 150 years prior to the present day. A human exploratory craft charting the Pleiades-Taurus or Seven Sisters star cluster detected a unknown vessel basking in the Class-B star’s radiation field. Excitement saw to the demise of caution for the would-be explorers as no sooner had they revealed their presence did the awesome weight of that hives Empress’s mind press upon them. In a span of hours their will was broken, twisted to fit the hives agenda of ever greater expansion.The Empresses learned much from the explorers including the existence of the old enemy, the ones who by their absence nearly wiped out their entire species, the Dionaea. A singular thought echoed across across time and space, across every Kidan that ever lived within the Empresses interwoven genetic consciousnesses, revenge. Drawing forth from this unquenchable rage the Empresses moved their colonization fleets towards Argos IV, the nearest system that held Dionaean life. Other than the budding Gestalt, only a humble research outpost existed upon the moon of a gas giant in the otherwise unremarkable system.
Comprising of less than a two hundred staff they were unprepared for the hungry eyes that befell them. The now joined Kidan fleet razed the outpost in their vengeance and slaughtered the pubescent Gestalt but not before picking through the minds of every man women and child among their number. Slow and calculating the Empresses leading the fleet took time unweaving each mind. They were unprepared for the counterattack that met them two weeks later above Argos IV as nothing they obtained from the humans or skrell hinted much upon their military capabilities. What followed was the first and last documented interspecies stellar conflict. With a defence force of nearly fifty ships The mostly human armada decimated the Kidan positions above the burning skies of Argos.Mentally the Empresses counterattacked causing hysteria and mayhem aboard enemy ships though ultimately the superior weapons and tactical positions of their aggressors caused all Empresses within the fleet but one to perish.
As their numbers dwindled the desperate and despaired Kidan took unconventional methods to protect the remaining Empress. They opened unsecured warprifts into bluespace within the enemies positions, launching their own ships into the enemy causing mass destruction of a scale never seen sense, though even this only delayed their defeat. Eventually the last Empress fell causing a discordance among the Empress’s collective consciousness and indeed the Kida as a whole who until then saw the Empresses as living deities. Some saw this new war as a repeat of history and desired to acquiesce to the aliens they faced, some craved for war, hearkening to the primal genetic echos of the primitive Kida before them and still others desired to escape the system all together, to disappear into the void of space, away from danger and conflict. Separated in thought for the first time since their emergence a great division occurred, with most of the remaining Empresses agreeing to come to peace with the hesitant races of the galaxy. In 2432 at a DMZ across inner Kidan Space a unconditional surrender pact was accepted. Severely limiting Kidan fleet strength and instituting strict population control of their species, allowing the Kida only a dozen colonies, as well as controlling the number of Empresses ever allowed at one time.
