Post by acolgan on Jan 20, 2014 4:15:15 GMT
Physical Description
The Skathari are an insectoid race – six-legged arthropods that scuttle roughly 1 metre high and 2 metres long, often balancing themselves on their forelegs when engaging with complex tasks or other species. Their chitinous exoskeleton is dark green, highly polished, and covered with a variety of hive and hatchling engravings that are administered at each Skathari's Final Shedding. While not especially strong, the Skathari are quite dextrous and cunning. They communicate largely through chemical and body signals, or through small devices mounted near the thorax that translate signals into sound and vice versa.
Yna, their homeworld, was long dominated by predatory plant species succoured by the sun and soil alike, while the Skathari lived underground to subsist largely on luminous mushrooms and rotting organic matter. Only recently have the Skathari broken free from the confines of their homeworld to live under the sky and amongst the stars. The life span of a Skathari Monarch is several hundred years, although recent innovations by Courtier scientists have prolonged it to as much as 700. Upon death, bodies are ripped apart and given to hatchlings. If the individual is particularly noteworthy, its facial carapace is preserved and hung on the wall of its hatching cavern, to encourage the hatchlings to greatness.
Society
Skathari society is separated into roughly 400 hive-principalities, each of which consists of several castes.
The vast majority of the Warrior caste are lobotomized drones that perform heavy labour and dangerous tasks unsuited to the Worker caste. Unlike the other castes, warriors have no engravings to mark their lineage or deeds. They usually have short lifespans, often living little more than 20 years. However, some Warriors are permitted to develop normally after being implanted with microexplosives; they comprise special military units overseen by Courtier officers augmented with neural triggers. Despite these safeguards, individual Warriors occasionally go rogue, which by law results in the total extermination of the present caste generation from that hive.
Workers represent the majority of the Skathari population. While originally mindless drones, workers are now intelligent thanks to millenia of selective breeding and (more recently) genetic engineering, with more industrious workers being rewarded with royal jelly and the indolent lifestyle of the males. While allowing for more complex collective endeavours and a higher standard of living, this has created its own set of problems, and Worker demagogues are often publicly executed for stirring up revolts. Workers who perform their roles and stay quiet can live up to 100 years.
Courtiers are the elites in Skathari society, consisting largely of scientists, merchants, industralists, and military officers. The greatest advocates for the disarmament lobotomies, in the decades after the Great War the Courtiers have propelled the Skathari into space with dreams of glittering asteroids and interplanetary farms to feed billions of servile Workers. While in the service of the monarchs, they are not averse to regicide, provided that a more compliant breeder lies waiting in the wings. They have lifespans comparable to the Monarchs, living several hundred years at a stretch.
Males live in limited numbers and are traded between monarchs to secure political and trade relationships. This has also had the effect of reducing many of the racial differences between the various hive-principalities, enraging traditionalists and reinvigorating the ancient practice of chitin engravings. Males live in harems of 20-100, depending on the prestige of the monarch, and may be hatched or converted by eating royal jelly. However, masculinity comes at a price, since a male only lives about 30 years.
Monarchs are the highest caste among the Skathari. As the political, social, and biological rulers of their hives, they wield enormous power. In practice, however, this power is often tempered by each principality's Courtier class, who were among the greatest advocates for the disarmament lobotomies. Out of necessity, most hives have two monarchs, which allows one to travel to the Spire – a towering edifice erected at the point where the Skathari first broke ground – while the other remains confined in a cave, laying eggs. In many cases, this results in one monarch murdering the other and hatching a less troublesome replacement. Most Monarchs are conservative in their politics, preferring to remain close to the homeworld, but many are keen to establish colonies on new worlds.
The Grand Monarch is the greatest among equals in the Skathari Republic, tasked with the challenge of maintaining the balance of power among the 400 principalities. When a Grand Monarch is selected, she is sterilized and takes up residence in the highest peak of the Spire, above the heads of even the tallest carnivorous trees. Stripped of her rule, she wields tremendous influence as a power broker and as the head of the Skathari's limited military forces, along with a cabinet of top Courtier advisors. Some Grand Monarchs may live a few hundred years in their roles, while others don't last until the next day's sunrise.
History
For centuries, the Skathari tribes fought brutal wars of attrition in the limestone caverns and artificial tunnels beneath the surface of Yna. After countless hives were brought to extinction, Monarchs and Courtiers on all sides began to communicate in secret, overcoming ancient rivalries to preserve their lives and fortunes. Following a particularly bloody battle in this seemingly unending three-dimensional subterranean trench warfare, the Monarchs and Courtiers from 30 tribes unleashed a secretly engineered plague to destroy their own diminished Warrior castes and unite under a common banner.
The plague spread across the planet and brought the remaining Warrior hive-castes to their knees. Seeking to avoid further losses at the claws of the United 30, the remaining Monarchs sent emissaries to the Spire. This ancient structure, which predated the oldest of the old stories, was univerally acknowledged as hallowed earth – the one place on Yna where the underworld stood unscathed above the carnivorous trees. Beneath the sacred Ynaian sun, the hive-principalities formed a constitution, with the first clause being global disarmament among all the parties.
In the six centuries since the Great War and the foundation of the republic, the Skathari have made enormous technological strides, thanks to extensive collaborations among the Courtiers and united workforces. Having developed the means for interstellar travel, the Skathari Monarchs and Courtiers push ever-higher degrees of refinement, expansion, and trade. They know that their fragile peace can only be maintained through balance and conspiracies, and the cost of failure is death.
The Skathari are an insectoid race – six-legged arthropods that scuttle roughly 1 metre high and 2 metres long, often balancing themselves on their forelegs when engaging with complex tasks or other species. Their chitinous exoskeleton is dark green, highly polished, and covered with a variety of hive and hatchling engravings that are administered at each Skathari's Final Shedding. While not especially strong, the Skathari are quite dextrous and cunning. They communicate largely through chemical and body signals, or through small devices mounted near the thorax that translate signals into sound and vice versa.
Yna, their homeworld, was long dominated by predatory plant species succoured by the sun and soil alike, while the Skathari lived underground to subsist largely on luminous mushrooms and rotting organic matter. Only recently have the Skathari broken free from the confines of their homeworld to live under the sky and amongst the stars. The life span of a Skathari Monarch is several hundred years, although recent innovations by Courtier scientists have prolonged it to as much as 700. Upon death, bodies are ripped apart and given to hatchlings. If the individual is particularly noteworthy, its facial carapace is preserved and hung on the wall of its hatching cavern, to encourage the hatchlings to greatness.
Society
Skathari society is separated into roughly 400 hive-principalities, each of which consists of several castes.
The vast majority of the Warrior caste are lobotomized drones that perform heavy labour and dangerous tasks unsuited to the Worker caste. Unlike the other castes, warriors have no engravings to mark their lineage or deeds. They usually have short lifespans, often living little more than 20 years. However, some Warriors are permitted to develop normally after being implanted with microexplosives; they comprise special military units overseen by Courtier officers augmented with neural triggers. Despite these safeguards, individual Warriors occasionally go rogue, which by law results in the total extermination of the present caste generation from that hive.
Workers represent the majority of the Skathari population. While originally mindless drones, workers are now intelligent thanks to millenia of selective breeding and (more recently) genetic engineering, with more industrious workers being rewarded with royal jelly and the indolent lifestyle of the males. While allowing for more complex collective endeavours and a higher standard of living, this has created its own set of problems, and Worker demagogues are often publicly executed for stirring up revolts. Workers who perform their roles and stay quiet can live up to 100 years.
Courtiers are the elites in Skathari society, consisting largely of scientists, merchants, industralists, and military officers. The greatest advocates for the disarmament lobotomies, in the decades after the Great War the Courtiers have propelled the Skathari into space with dreams of glittering asteroids and interplanetary farms to feed billions of servile Workers. While in the service of the monarchs, they are not averse to regicide, provided that a more compliant breeder lies waiting in the wings. They have lifespans comparable to the Monarchs, living several hundred years at a stretch.
Males live in limited numbers and are traded between monarchs to secure political and trade relationships. This has also had the effect of reducing many of the racial differences between the various hive-principalities, enraging traditionalists and reinvigorating the ancient practice of chitin engravings. Males live in harems of 20-100, depending on the prestige of the monarch, and may be hatched or converted by eating royal jelly. However, masculinity comes at a price, since a male only lives about 30 years.
Monarchs are the highest caste among the Skathari. As the political, social, and biological rulers of their hives, they wield enormous power. In practice, however, this power is often tempered by each principality's Courtier class, who were among the greatest advocates for the disarmament lobotomies. Out of necessity, most hives have two monarchs, which allows one to travel to the Spire – a towering edifice erected at the point where the Skathari first broke ground – while the other remains confined in a cave, laying eggs. In many cases, this results in one monarch murdering the other and hatching a less troublesome replacement. Most Monarchs are conservative in their politics, preferring to remain close to the homeworld, but many are keen to establish colonies on new worlds.
The Grand Monarch is the greatest among equals in the Skathari Republic, tasked with the challenge of maintaining the balance of power among the 400 principalities. When a Grand Monarch is selected, she is sterilized and takes up residence in the highest peak of the Spire, above the heads of even the tallest carnivorous trees. Stripped of her rule, she wields tremendous influence as a power broker and as the head of the Skathari's limited military forces, along with a cabinet of top Courtier advisors. Some Grand Monarchs may live a few hundred years in their roles, while others don't last until the next day's sunrise.
History
For centuries, the Skathari tribes fought brutal wars of attrition in the limestone caverns and artificial tunnels beneath the surface of Yna. After countless hives were brought to extinction, Monarchs and Courtiers on all sides began to communicate in secret, overcoming ancient rivalries to preserve their lives and fortunes. Following a particularly bloody battle in this seemingly unending three-dimensional subterranean trench warfare, the Monarchs and Courtiers from 30 tribes unleashed a secretly engineered plague to destroy their own diminished Warrior castes and unite under a common banner.
The plague spread across the planet and brought the remaining Warrior hive-castes to their knees. Seeking to avoid further losses at the claws of the United 30, the remaining Monarchs sent emissaries to the Spire. This ancient structure, which predated the oldest of the old stories, was univerally acknowledged as hallowed earth – the one place on Yna where the underworld stood unscathed above the carnivorous trees. Beneath the sacred Ynaian sun, the hive-principalities formed a constitution, with the first clause being global disarmament among all the parties.
In the six centuries since the Great War and the foundation of the republic, the Skathari have made enormous technological strides, thanks to extensive collaborations among the Courtiers and united workforces. Having developed the means for interstellar travel, the Skathari Monarchs and Courtiers push ever-higher degrees of refinement, expansion, and trade. They know that their fragile peace can only be maintained through balance and conspiracies, and the cost of failure is death.