Diona
Assigned to:Disreputablesquid
The Diona are Sentient plant like creatures that grow from seeds into larvae into humanoids. Killing them is legally murder; they are not monkeys.
NT has taken the position however that Nymphs are not deserving of rights, and may legally be killed. Animal cruelty laws do apply. This has caused controversy and protest.
Mechanics
- Dionae can speak a unique language called Rootsong. Use this in game by typing say :q, or use it over the radio with say ;:q
- All Dionae have claws, and will scratch with them instead of punching, dealing extra damage.
- Dionae are slower than other races.
- They do not bleed.
- They are essentially space-proof, due to the fact they do not need to breathe and are unaffected by pressure changes. However, the lack of light will kill them if they don't carry a light source
- Require light to survive. Lack of light gradually kills. Presence of light has a healing factor for suffocation and brute.
- Radiation resistance. Large doses (IE: Singularity and radiation storm) don't seem to have anything beyond short term effects.
- Do not feel pain - can take any amount of damage without falling into pain crit, but will fall down in the seconds before death.
- Extremely vulnerable to "Plant-B-Gone" weed killer, 2 sprays is lethal.
Overview
The dionaea are a group of omnivorous, slow-metabolism plantlike organisms that are in fact clusters of individual, smaller organisms. They exhibit a high degree of structural flexibility, and come in a wide variety of shapes and colours to reflect the intelligence of each individual creature.
An adolescent diona, known as a diona nymph, will take genetic material, usually blood, from a variety of sources. On human stations this has earned them a reputation for being 'bitey', as they will often and without warning steal a droplet from some interesting individual to encorporate into their emerging gestalt.
Dionaea have no planets, government, or society. The diona reproductive cycle eventually results in the humanoid diona, in their 'seed' or 'samen' state, making a pilgrimage of sorts to a communally agreed-upon site - either a gas giant or a star, depending on the 'strain' of the individuals. Once there, they interlink their bodies and enter an orbit around the celestial body, fusing and merging into a fledgeling superorganism that will eventually grow to the size of a space station. The gestalt feeds on the gasses and emissions of the star or planet, converting them into myriad useful forms or storing them in sacs and bladders for buoyancy in atmosphere, or in recent years, for trade with interested bodies.
Prior to this transformation, the dionaea spread their seamen throughout the galaxy. They do so by imitating the forms and modes of speech of the races that they encounter, picking facts and thoughts from minds and using them to shape ambassadors. The trade of energy and rare matter from stars and gas giants is used to facilitate the dispersal of the seeds throughout cultures, and the seeds will gather as much information as they can, developing into wildly unique and interesting individuals to bring as much variation as possible to the gestalt when they merge. They will also collect scientific information on bioengineering, genetics, chemistry and biological science in order to improve their gestalt state and therefore the seeds that will eventually be produced.
Contact
Roughly 300 years prior to the present day, Skrellian exploratory craft came across the system known to human astronomers as Epsilon Ursae Minoris during routine scouting patrols. They dutifully flagged it for review, as it was a ternary system with a triad of stars, and went on their way, noting a few strange readings from the upper photosphere of the system's core bodies.
Only when the mining fleets of a Skrell industrial consortium arrived in 2294 did the readings become explained. A thick belt of drifting matter was slung in a wide arc around the three central stars, held in place by the machinations of ancient energy-patterning machines. The ruins were ancient and devoid of anything remarkable, and the patterning node technology both inefficient, aesthetically ugly, -dangerously- radioactive and a decade behind modern tech.
Far more interesting to the surveyors were the odd readings from the photospheres. Investigations stalled when attempting to delve into the immense heat and hard radiation rising from the stars, but eventually an odd comms contact was made. Preliminary analysis of the data had the scientists in fits of excitement. It seemed that the stars were sentient. Secondary analysis was less exciting but slightly more bizarre: something in the upper photosphere, not the sun itself, was very pleased to meet the surveyor ships.
Over the next several decades, science vessels were brought in and the strange electromagnetic language of the creatures that came to be called Dionaea was painstakingly decrypted. The scientists learned that the strange, immense structures were conglomerates of plantlike creatures, buoyed on rare and unstable gasses and fuelled by hard radiation, asteroid impacts and a kind of complex internal fusion.
Eventually - over several years, due to the slow speed of thought of the Dionaea gestalts - an agreement was reached. The scientists would take from the Dionaea several samples and seeds, and sow them in other systems that the Dionaea could not reach. In exchange, the gestalts would allow the surveyors and miners to establish habitation modules on and in the bodies of the gestalts, allowing them to refine and export the rare gasses and elements only available to creatures living in the bosom of a star.
Language
While smaller Dionaea are capable of vocalizing languages from all manner of other races, thanks to their fluid form, they tend to do so in a monotone or as a series of heavy bass rumbles or grinds. They come across as very slow and not very smart in Siik'tajr due to the relative slowness of their 'ear' and 'tail' growths, but communicate very well in Sinta'unathi. They cannot speak Skrellian at all due to the pitch variations required.
Their own language, colloquially called Rootsong, is based predominantly on the emission of radio and heat waves and as such is very very difficult to speak without several hundred kilograms of specialized machinery. Luckily, a diona nymph can harvest the rudiments of language from blood samples and communication is rarely an issue.
Relations with other races
Dionaea are for the most part entirely peaceful and compatible with all know interstellar cultures. Their preferred habitat is completely uninhabitable, being in the upper reaches of a hellish inferno, and since they have little to no use for money and a fondness for interaction with other intelligence races, they serve as excellent emergency berths for ships lost in unfriendly and underpopulated space.
The Vox primalis and armalis treat them with an almost superstitious respect and awe, likely due to their similarity to the apex.
NT maintains a good working relationship with the gestalts, exchanging star maps, planetary settlement rights and bluespace comms and FTL engines for various services, and many of the younger Diona have actually formed their bodies around starship components and hab modules to enable them to journey across all manner of inhabited systems.
The Skrell and the Dionaea have several scientific and exploratory contracts, and at least one Diona gestalt has converted itself to a simulacrum of the Skrell homeworld, been fitted with FTL engines, and hosted explorer parties as they warble across the cosmos.
The Unathi are for the most part uninvolved with the Dionaea due to their relative lack of space travel, but some adherents of various reforestation religions on Moghes consider the creatures as proof that if the heart of a sodding SUN can support life, the sand wastes are certainly up for it.
The Tajara have no documented contact with the Dionaea.
Mentality
Dionae are highly curious, intelligent (if slow) and passive. They feel pain of a sort, though in a very different manner to humans, but are only able to emulate emotion. An 'adolescent' diona will generally take on observed traits of the entities around it as a side-effect of the instinctive information-gathering and hoarding that each diona conducts.
They do not have names as such, and when asked for one by other races will often supply an excessively long and poetic description of a memory they consider fundamental to their makeup ex. 'the spatter of starlight across the face of the iron mountain and the deep note of the planet-song'. This has been known to make Heads of Personnel need to go have a lie down when filling out ID cards.
They have no concept of personal or mental space, and those who are new to human culture tend to be excessively touchy-feely or invasive of privacy.
Dionaea have nothing resembling government. They speak about the chorus or song of a group in the same manner that one would talk about teamwork or membership in a group.
