Nepetel - TheGiraffe3/Endless-Sky-Creators-Handbook GitHub Wiki

NAVIGATION

APPEARANCE

The Nepetel are particularly weird among galactic species. They’re unicellular and stand anywhere from 5 to 14 feet tall, with outer membranes as thin as 3 or 4 inches and as thick as 8 or 9 inches in some places. They have gastropod-ish bodies, with a four-armed upper body and a sluglike lower body that lacks defined legs (they move more like snakes). Their heads are pronounced but lack conventional features; instead sight is achieved by 4 proto-eyes on stalks, and speech is accomplished through a thin membrane under their chin. They do not have conventional mouths for eating; instead, food is finely blended with water and absorbed through portions of the body where the membrane is thinner (such as the wrist).

The most notable distinguishing features between individual Nepetel are the shapes and colours of their shells. Shells can vary in colour, usually with light green or blue hues, but a relatively common condition causes the shell to turn out red or orange. Shell shape is much more widely varied, from smooth, rolled forms to spiked forms that coil to one side of the body. Discussing shell shapes and colours is a common pastime.

CULTURE

The Nepetel are a remarkably social race; though their forms are archaic by multicellular folks’ standards, they are negligibly senescent (do not physically age beyond a certain point) and thus most living Nepetel have been living for hundreds of years.

The divide between one generation and another is difficult as they reproduce by mitosis; that is, one “individual” splits into two perfect copies of itself. How who was who was settled in the early days of their culture is lost to time, but nowadays, their naming scheme has become very robust. An individual starts with a one- or two-syllable name, but as they grow, add up to 4 syllables to their name. Then, when the mature individual splits, each of their “children” takes half the name (who takes the first half or last half is a particularly intense, personal discussion).

The Nepetel are a race of highly utilitarian workers, and their ships and architecture reflects this. They’re rarely concerned with aesthetics; ships and buildings are constantly tweaked and adjusted to improve their performance, often with irregular geometry jutting out of pre-existing architecture to accommodate a necessary addition.

Their ships reflect their culture in the manners of being durable and reliable, if aesthetically displeasing to most. Weak spots (hardpoints) in the hull are minimized, and instead of fighters the Nepetel use extremely bulky, durable drones, often deployed in significant numbers. Their ships also support robust self-repair and cooling systems, owing to the Nepetel desire for incredibly reliable function.

They are also, however, connoisseurs of quirky technology; be it their compound gun rigs that mix multiple weapons into a single hardpoint mount, or their two-stage plasma thrusters that allow a ship to give itself an extra boost when needed. Additionally, their reliance on batteries is particularly unique among the galaxy, mostly due to their reluctance to use shipboard nuclear reactors.

The Nepetel are also home to a highly industrious postmarket workforce called the Outriders. Similar to human Marauders, Outriders push their ships to the extreme by re-engineering part or all of a craft to improve its performance; unlike human Marauders, however, Outrider vessels are typically subject to a far more diverse array of modifications (for example, an Outrider Petelek may be modified to have a larger cargo bay).

HISTORY

The Nepetel first emerged in their primordial forms back during the times of the Drak and the galactic firstborn. However, they were an extremely slow burning civilization; by the time the first anatomically modern Nepetel arose, most of the races they were alive to see the beginnings of had already ended. From there, their society very slowly progressed through what humans would call the agricultural and subsequent industrial eras, with spaceflight only first being achieved in about 20,000 BCE. Their first permanent offworld residence, the Palatikat space station, was first established in about 19,500 BCE. From there, they slowly expanded to the rest of their home system over the next ~1500 years. By the time of about 17,000 BCE, every celestial body had some form of permanent artificial residential satellite. With nowhere else to explore, the Nepetel stagnated for approximately 10,000 years, slowly building up a greater and greater urban presence.

Then, the Nepetel were visited by some alien species that taught them of the wider galaxy; this visitor allegedly gifted them Scram Drives, which the Nepetel still use to this day. The Nepetel, however, have never figured out how to produce “standard” hyperdrives; to this day, all their ships are designed with Scram Drives in mind. Over the next 500 years, the Nepetel expanded over the roughly dozen star systems they could access via Scram Drive, forming many highly developed worlds; to a human, almost all Nepetel worlds would seem remarkably urban.

In their modern incarnation, the Nepetel have once again somewhat stagnated. There is, however, a very heavily ongoing effort to try and see the rest of the galaxy, with some Nepetel theorizing about what the wider galactic community knows as the jump drives.

The Nepetel have very limited relationships with the factions around them; the only factions they’re known to have contacted are the unknown species that gave them Scram Drives. The Nepetel, however, are very overtly friendly to new races due to their ancestral memory of the species they now call the “Lifebringers”. They allow outsiders to freely purchase their technology (outfits), though they are slightly more reserved with permitting them to purchase their ships.