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A suggestion for a race briefly run over with Lily via AIM:

The Ceruleans!

Ceruleans rather strongly resemble Earth spiders. With eight legs and six eyes, the mistake might be easy to make were they not fairly non-insectoid. The Ceruleans' bodies are divided into three sections - head, torso, and abdomen. The head is fairly obvious in function, and contains the brain, eyes, mouth, and nose. The torso is the largest section, and contains many of the major organs, as well as all eight of the legs. Oddly, it also has their ears, which are not as sensitive as some race's. The final section, the abdomen, contains essentially nothing but their intestines. They are unarmored, unlike spiders, and have pinkish skin, unusually similarly to humans. Their hairs are longer and stiffer than human body hair generally is, however.

Ceruleans are about six feet long and six feet wide when standing normally, and will be as tall as two or three feet. In situations where they need to fit where humans do, they'll generally just walk on the walls.

The Ceruleans do have opposable thumbs, and their hands have four fingers beyond the thumbs. They have gecko-like microscopic hairs upon their hands, allowing them to cling to surfaces with ease. Their leg-arms tend to be fairly powerful, since they come from a highly forested planet where they lived in the trees. This has also graced them with a good sense of balance and movement, not to mention fine eyesight (provided primarily by two eyes, but supplemented by secondary, smaller eyes placed both below the primaries and on the sides of the head).

Ceruleans can and do wield weapons, though larger ones tend to rest on their shoulders and "backs".

The Ceruleans now exist only in a single form, a government which can be roughly translated as the "Cerulean Patriot's Union." Exiles from their world (which was captured by the Iddi) the non-space-traveling race was given the technology by a neighboring world. The Ceruleans now live on ships they inaccurately call "Wrecks." As the Ceruleans get materials, they carefully and surprisingly professionally add on to their vessels, ensuring that what works now will continue to work before they slap anything else on. They generally will take things apart and use parts rather than wholes, something more attributable to culture than anything else.

The Cerulean FTL is generally actual space-warping warp drives, which carry their spaceships unusually slowly. For the lighter vessels, however, the Ceruleans have "window" jumps at short range, which they use to make lightning-fast assaults, whether for the purpose of softening up resistance for a larger attack or just for a hit and run.

The Ceruleans have become like gypsies, living off these massive Wrecks and trying to survive. More and more, the Ceruleans have become aggressive for land, hunting for territory to call their own.

And that's where the Aurorans come in!

The Auroran race's name best translates to "Auroran Upper Star," referring to a star very similar to the Earth's North Star, in that it did not move in their sky. They developed FTL tech some amount of time before the Ceruleans were driven from their homes.

The Aurorans are bipedal with two arms, five fingers, five toes, etc. - very primatish. Their skin is even very similar to human's - generally light peach colored and with a fuzz of hair. However, they are gifted with both lungs and gills, as well as a third eyelid for use underwater. Their hands, though no longer fully webbed, are webbed between the knuckles and the first joints of each. Their hand spread is not substantially limited; they can force the webbings taught inside their hands.

The Auroran homeworld is again remarkably similar to Earth, but it carries a substantially greater amount of water on its surface, covering as much as 80 or 90 percent of the world's surface. As such, the Aurorans lived in the seas as much as they did on the land.

Beyond this, Aurorans are generally comparable to humans, although humans are generally a little taller and a little heavier, not to mention having a slightly longer life expectancy.

The Aurorans, much like the Ceruleans, were driven from their homeworld by the Iddi. However, as they were driven out, they collected many of the races together onto ships they were still busy constructing. The forlorn, half-complete appearances of these vessels earned the name "Wreck" for them as the Ceruleans watched the sad constructs descend into their atmosphere. While the reasons for this action are somewhat motivated by charity, those who would have argued otherwise could not argue that the Ceruleans would be an excellent addition to their vessels, particularly as fighters. They did expect to use the Ceruleans. They did not expect to be out-voted by the Ceruleans, who proceeded to take over the governing of the ships - which was just as well. As it turned out, the minority of the Aurorans were really interested in providing expensive charity to these refugees, while the Ceruleans had not reached a level of corruption at which they would enslave another entire race. The Aurorans and the Ceruleans, however, frequently temper each other's unfortunate qualities and generally have led to a more tolerant cooperative government, with each new race added on creating a further mixed society.

How's that?

The Keresi - Physiology

Keresi vaguely resemble Earth spiders. With eight legs and six eyes, the mistake might be easy to make were they not fairly non-insectoid. The Keresi' bodies are only divided as far as much as the neck separates the head from the body. The head is fairly obvious in function, and contains the brain, eyes, mouth, and nose. The torso is the largest section, and contains many of the major organs, as well as all eight of the legs. Oddly, it also has their ears, which are not as sensitive as some race's. They are unarmored, unlike spiders, and have pinkish skin, unusually similarly to humans. Their hairs are longer and stiffer than human body hair generally is, however.

The shape of the Keresi can be compared somewhat to a prone, legless human with eight arms, all of them along the sides of the torso. Their heads are closer to those of monkeys - very round and with wide primary eyes, although their secondaries are more beady and are in fact pure black. (Reference)

Keresi are about six feet long and six feet wide when standing normally, and will be as tall as two or three feet. In situations where they need to fit where humans do, they'll generally just walk on the walls.

The Keresi do have opposable thumbs, and their hands have four fingers beyond the thumbs. They have gecko-like microscopic hairs upon their hands, allowing them to cling to surfaces with ease. Their leg-arms tend to be fairly powerful, since they come from a highly forested planet where they lived in the trees. This has also graced them with a good sense of balance and movement, not to mention fine eyesight (provided primarily by two eyes, but supplemented by secondary, smaller eyes placed both below the primaries and on the sides of the head).

Keresi can and do wield weapons, though larger ones tend to rest on their shoulders and backs.

Auroran Physiology

The Auroran race's name best translates to "Auroran Upper Star," referring to a star very similar to the Earth's North Star, in that it did not move in their sky. They developed FTL tech some amount of time before the Keresi were driven from their homes.

The Aurorans are comparable to octopi, in that they are aquatic and have eight tentacles, as well as having essentially no bone mass and fairly squishy, wet, sort of nasty bodies. Their skin tends to be blue under natural circumstances, although they are able to change the color of their skin. It comes down to one thing: Aurorans are essentially intelligent octopi.

The Auroran homeworld is again remarkably similar to Earth, but it carries a substantially greater amount of water on its surface, covering as much as 80 or 90 percent of the world's surface. Being aquatic creatures, the Aurorans lived in the ocean.

Aurorans do not have mouths, and are of themselves incapable of spoken language; instead they have relied on a form of sign language relying both on movement and color to indicate their intended message. As technology has advanced, neural links have made communication easier, and have made it possible to link into devices that translate their thoughts into appropriate spoken languages.

Outside of water, Aurorans should theoretically not be able to survive, as the pressures would be different and the creatures would be killed. For this purpose the Aurorans have developed exosuits, water-filled devices that allow them to subsist outside of their natural environments. They’re not particularly maneuverable in the dry environs, however. This is because they are supported by a rather stiff steel mesh, giving the Aurorans the support structure necessary to survive in the air. The suits are filled with water and pressurized appropriately. Small devices attacked to their “backs” allow them two things. First, it filters water and keeps oxygen in it. Second, it has a power source to assist them in movement - electromagnets are used to assist movements, as the steel mesh is very resistant to movement, but susceptible to magnetics.

Auroran and Keresi History

The Aurorans were masters of their planets and the surrounding space until their encounters with the Iddi. As the Aurorans had never really left their own system and had only very recently so much as sent out probes into nearby space when their world was attacked by the Iddi. Unable to effectively repel the invaders, after some resistance the surviving Aurorans fled into their newly-functioning vessels and made for somewhere safer.

Though they had escaped, their ships didn’t have much life left in them and only made it as far as a planet called by its natives “Keresi.” The Keresi were at that time capable of building shuttle-like spacecraft - though they could survive in the vacuum of space, they were incapable of FTL travel, and were thus trapped within their own uninhabitable system. The Aurorans, seeing that the Keresi had the materials and the population to repair their vessels, more or less recruited the Aurorans into their fold and managed to get their vessels properly operational again. Hoping to settle in, the Aurorans left their ships as they were, but luck was not with them; the Iddi struck at Keresi, and the Aurorans and Keresi were driven together from the planet.

The Keresi, not as devastated and not bothering with as much defense as the Aurorans had, were far more numerous, and although the ships had originally been built to house aquatic beings, the Keresi settled down into the areas that they had themselves added onto the vessel in case of such an occurrence. As their numbers were much greater than the Aurorans, the Keresi in the end began to assimilate the Aurorans as opposed to vice versa. Eventually the Keresi essentially assumed the government, although the Aurorans still hold a fair position, by right of voting. More on that in a moment.

The Wrecks

Wrecks come from a variety of lineages. Some of the largest are the ones the Aurorans rode from their home planet to Keresi, which were subsequently added on to; others are modified proto-FTL vessels constructed by the Keresi and upgraded by the Aurorans to function much faster; still others are vessels pirated from any number of other factions, built up to suit the needs of their occupants.

The Wrecks all share one thing in common, however; there is no pattern to their construction, but there is nothing haphazard in their building. All of them are fairly logically organized despite all of their constant additions. All of their vessels have places both for the Keresi and the Ceruleans - some filled with oxygenated air, the rest filled with water. Large portions of the larger vessels are dedicated to hydro and aeroponics; modules purify air and water for breathing and drinking. In some of the much larger, city-size ships, there are city-square like constructs, wide open spaces with greenery and deep fountains with coral and fish and other greenery.

Wrecks are equipped with any variety of weapons. Some carry Type 1 or Type 2 plasma weapons, some carry railguns, some carry railguns with Type 3 plasma weaponry, but all carry some variety. The Keresi, having suffered what they have, are not willing to back down before any other invaders, and the Wrecks tend to be very heavily armed, whenever possible.

Many larger Wrecks serve as fighter carriers, primarily for the MF-4200, or less technically Anglicized, the Vulture fighter. Vultures are two-man fighters, designed originally by the Keresi in the days of atmospheric and space travel. As such, it’s a supreme design for both environs; however, it is not as modern as some other race’s, and as such is a little underpowered, in both weaponry and shielding. Its engines are quite large, and it’s quite speedy.

For primary weapons, the Vulture carries a pair of Type 1, C Class plasma-enhanced railgun chainguns. In essence, it’s six pairs of rails mounted in a circular pattern. It takes enough time to charge the weapons’ rails, so they spin while they await that effect. The ammo of the railguns is filled with gas, and the charge pushed through it causes a chemical reaction, super-heating the gas. The containing magnetic field is imparted by the field that launches the ammo in the first place, and the field collapses when the round strikes the target. If it does not, the field will eventually dissipate and the round will consume itself, posing no threat to anyone who might otherwise be unintentionally hit.

Secondarily but essentially just as important, the Vulture is capable of carrying a very hefty payload of missiles or bombs. The Keresi generally equip them with Type 1, C-B class plasma warheads. The missiles cannot sustain this field on their own, so the gas in the warhead is superheated and the field is created by energy from the fighter upon launching. If this fails, the missile is nothing more than a steel pole launched at the target at perhaps supersonic speeds.

None of these weapons, otherwise produced, could possibly equal the combat capability of most other modern fighters. However, through clever design, the Vultures can at least hold their own against any other fighter in the universe.



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