Well, the help I got from you guys on the last worldbuilding post was so invaluable that I thought I'd try again. The Ceticians are a playable alien race whose main ability is the control of time. They are very alien, which is probably going to freak people out (concept sketch, concept render). Here are there main concepts for this species:

• Elephant sized
• Oxygen breathers
• Communicate with pheromones
• Constantly vent gas at the top of their three ambulatory stalks
• Color and texture of gas reveals their mood
• Lovers of knowledge, books and culture
• Prefer to entangle and stymie rather than fight
• Have a limited amount of regenerating energy that they can use to slow or accelerate time within a bubble
• Highly sought after for their ability to create exotic materials
• Respected elders that younger races look up to
• Sense cluster in the middle of the body can detach and float (using biological gravity machinery): This supports mating, personality transfer and exploration
• Immortal except for illness, accident or injury
• Asexual reproduction
• Newborn personalities are imprinted from the pheromonal input of elders

I see this species as being organized around Academia, so that perhaps their leaders are Chancellors or Provosts. Status in society is gained either by joining a Peacekeeper force which is dedicated to serving other cultures, or becoming a Time Sifter (archaeologist). They are probably a socialist democratic society that places a heavy emphasis on the group over the individual (like Japanese culture?). Because they control time, they may have many inefficient methods: For instance, they might not think twice about taking a 3 or 4 century trip if they're skilled enough to place themselves in a bubble; or they might not have adequate hospitals on a world because they could just as easily suspend a patient and ship them offworld. Most friends have commented that the species is extremely disgusting. One said that he'd shoot it on site. I would like to take on this xenophobia head on, but I'm not sure how you overcome a human's natural revulsion. How do you think a society that can control time and has been around for millions of generations would be organized? Can you think of any cool aspects to add to them that would make humans less afraid of them?

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Original post by Wavinator Here are there main concepts for this species: Elephant sized Oxygen breathers Communicate with pheremones Constantly vent gas at the top of their three ambulatory stalks Color and texture of gas reveals their mood Lovers of knowledge, books and culture Prefer to entangle and stymie rather than fight Have a limited amount of regenerating energy that they can use to slow or accelerate time within a bubble Highly sought after for their ability to create exotic materials Respected elders that younger races look up to Sense cluster in the middle of the body can detach and float (using biological gravity machinery): This supports mating, personality transfer and exploration Immortal except for illness, accident or injury Asexual reproduction Newborn personalities are imprinted from the pheremonal input of elders

How did you come up with these and most importantly why are they the way you describe them? Elephants are elephant sized because it's their evolutionary niche: by getting bigger than everyone else and growing a thicker skin they effectively increased their lifespan and hence increased their reproductive ability. Why are these guys elephant sized?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be discouraging at all. I just think that instead of coming up with features and trying to make up history afterwords it's a better idea to start from the beginning and "evolve" species in terms of their environment and evolutionary history as well as later social events.

Maybe if they had more of a way to give expressions, or if they were smaller, maybe then people would be less afraid of them.

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Elephants are elephant sized because it's their evolutionary niche: by getting bigger than everyone else and growing a thicker skin they effectively increased their lifespan and hence increased their reproductive ability.

Don't you effectively answer your own question? I don't see why you'd need to specifically explain why they're as large as they are. Despite their size I seem them as non-aggressive; maybe even feeding on ore, or gases/natural elements, rather than flora or fauna. Their lack of aggression puts me in mind more of giant dinosaurs like Apatosaurus (formerly Brontosaurus); their size was an effective protection, since the predators - including the largest carnivore of the period, Allosaurus - were considerably smaller.

The tri-stem design with the centralized core seems very protective in nature; they'd rather damage an outer limb than have their central core damaged.

To be honest, I wouldn't bother trying to "humanize" them to cut down on the xenophobia. Play it up! The appeal won't be visual, so keep expanding the "yuck" factor and win over the grossness-lovers! I'd make them psionic to some degree, or at least use the pheremone concept to affect humanoids in various ways. Give them some form of gelatinous ooze, maybe semi-sentient as helper-creatures. Have their technology remain organic/gaseous in nature. Perhaps their way of communicating with humanoids is to "connect" with them using tendrils inserted into some oriface on the humanoid body, then communicating through this "avatar"'s body using their vocal cords (see: movie, ID4). Their appeal is going to be their weirdness (in my view), and if you make them as strange and exotic as possible - but with abilities and technology that appeals to the player on different levels - you'll win a lot of converts.

If I can play an amorphous blob whose attack is to throw themselves at an enemy and smother them until they pass out, I'd probably have loads of fun jumping from cliffs onto unsuspecting armies ;) Just one way of looking at it.

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Can you think of any cool aspects to add to them that would make humans less afraid of them?

It seems to me that humans would be repulsed by them by their looks alone. Their personality and traits definitely do not excite any sort of hatred in me. So if you want them to be less fear/anger inspiring then you need to modify their looks slightly. One way would be to combine it with something harmless that we know.
Fur- Covered in long fur, I think these creatures would seem much friendlier. It would give off the teddy bear effect.
Clothing- For some reason, putting a hat on the senses nexus would have a slightly comical but overall appealing result. (side note 1)
Feather Wings- ??? I think that this goes against the basic design of creature but it would help explain their locomotion.(side note 2)

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How do you think a society that can control time and has been around for millions of generations would be organized?

Do they really see it as millions of years? They do control time. I would imagine a society of scholars would be very haphazard. They young ones would revise their beliefs based on the current evidence. The old ones would require more convincing, but would generally be open minded. I definitely see them as a communist state as well.
An amusing situation would be an uninitiated species landing on their planet. “Take me to your leader.” Tentacles come popping out from every Cetician within earshot, all pointing to different places.
Cetician, I think, would rule by assembly. If a decision was to be made they would gather together, (however it’s possible) and discuss the situation at great lengths. They would debate the topic for *years* before coming to a decision. However once they made a choice, they would all agree and commit to that choice.

Why are they such pacifists? Have they learned better? Was there an event that caused them to be that way?
What will the crew quarters for Ceticians look like? Is a graphic of a pheromone library possible?



Side notes
(1) The comical image of a Cetician with a baseball cap made me think about their humor. I believe that any intelligent race would have a sense of humor in some form. This race to me would have an older, but clean sense of humor. I can picture a Cetician uttering some remark and then slowly chuckle as the rest of the crew rolls its eyes, groans, and complains about the terrible pun. The crew would then go on with their work, with their spirits strangely uplifted.
(2)Locomotion is something I have wondered about. How exactly do these creatures move? If they lift one of their legs up they would fall on that side. Do they rely on the little toe like appendages to move? Are their bodies immobile and only their nexuses can move? This would lead to the three stem base being basically a residence. Can they swap bases? What’s the deal?

What's wrong with other races being afraid of them? Humans afraid of an unappealing but otherwise benevolent race would add a bit of interest..

Ha, apparently my PC ignored my login. The AP above was me.

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Original post by Thermodynamics It seems to me that humans would be repulsed by them by their looks alone. Their personality and traits definitely do not excite any sort of hatred in me. So if you want them to be less fear/anger inspiring then you need to modify their looks slightly. One way would be to combine it with something harmless that we know. Fur- Covered in long fur, I think these creatures would seem much friendlier. It would give off the teddy bear effect. Clothing- For some reason, putting a hat on the senses nexus would have a slightly comical but overall appealing result. (side note 1) Feather Wings- ??? I think that this goes against the basic design of creature but it would help explain their locomotion.(side note 2)

It's funny, but the first thing I thought of when modifying their looks would be to make them worse: Hair that sticks straight out from fringe bands on their bodies (could be a nice racial variant); or clothing composed of tassles and bells hanging from their stalks. :)

I think I want to leave their looks pretty much as a social challenge to gamers who might encounter them. However, now that you mentioned it, there's GOT to be an easter egg somewhere with Cetician in a baseball cap and suspenders. ;)

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Do they really see it as millions of years? They do control time.

Ahhh... of course. Yes, good point.

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I would imagine a society of scholars would be very haphazard. They young ones would revise their beliefs based on the current evidence. The old ones would require more convincing, but would generally be open minded. I definitely see them as a communist state as well.

Then it may make sense that the younger ones leave home to explore the galaxy in communes while the elders stay behind and keep society running.

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An amusing situation would be an uninitiated species landing on their planet. “Take me to your leader.” Tentacles come popping out from every Cetician within earshot, all pointing to different places.

:) Yes, they'd also have to have some sort of social stability that naturally arises, or you'd have radically different time-period perspectives. It would be like mixing and matching citizens of earth from every past century otherwise.

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Cetician, I think, would rule by assembly. If a decision was to be made they would gather together, (however it’s possible) and discuss the situation at great lengths. They would debate the topic for *years* before coming to a decision. However once they made a choice, they would all agree and commit to that choice.

Kind of like Treeants in LOTR. I like this. It would help make them static for very long periods of time, as well.

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Why are they such pacifists? Have they learned better? Was there an event that caused them to be that way?

Here's the scenario: Billions of years ago the Ceticians were shaped by tragedy when they were a young race. They evolved inside the confines of an empire who called themselves the Fading Immortals because although they possessed time flow technology, they could not control it, and their greatest fear was their inevitable death. In their mad craving for life, they fell upon the Ceticians and modified them extensively, finding the Cetician sense cluster to be superior to even their parallel quantum computers. The Immortals erased Cetician personalities, embedded quantum machinery in the Cetician genome, and installed mind control organelles into their very cells. Thus the empire made loyal slaves who generated time fields which preserved their masters' immortality for eons.

Some Ceticians, however, at great cost to themselves, slowly found a way to be free. By rapidly aging parts of their own bodies they caused the implants to fail. In the most successful cases, Ceticians were able to age only the mind control organelles. These Ceticians freed others and started a covert revolt.

The Ceticians, observant as they were, had seen the rise and fall of empires and the perpetual cycle of violence in the galaxy around them. They wanted to do something different with their freedom. If they took vengeance on their masters by killing them, they believed that they would become them, just another spoke on an endlessly turning wheel.

So the Ceticians turned their time control abilities on the technological base of their masters so that they could not exploit anyone else. Throughout the Fading Immortal's empire, they transformed factories, infrastructure and labs to dust. Then the Ceticians abandoned the Immortals, degenerating even the wormhole network that connected the Immortals' empire. The Fading Immortals lived a few more millinea in isolation, tearing one another apart in their madness, then went extinct.

The Ceticians have had a choice to remodify themselves and repair the damage. But they've chosen to live with the scars as a reminder lest they ever become what they once opposed.

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What will the crew quarters for Ceticians look like?

I've imagined that they sleep in pools that remind them of their swampy homeworld. (It also helps take the weight off of their bodies).

I've modelled their ships as being very angular from the outside, but maybe I should go with a much more organic approach. Maybe their quarters look like a miniature arboretum?

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Is a graphic of a pheromone library possible?

:) Smoking, multicolored vents?

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I can picture a Cetician uttering some remark and then slowly chuckle as the rest of the crew rolls its eyes, groans, and complains about the terrible pun. The crew would then go on with their work, with their spirits strangely uplifted.

I like this anecdote. :)

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Locomotion is something I have wondered about. How exactly do these creatures move?

The footpads sort of "tiptoe" a stalk forward, then set it down, in alternation. (Yes, this means they move relatively slowly.)

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Are their bodies immobile and only their nexuses can move?

The detachable movable nexus (nexi?) is a result of their extensive modification.

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Can they swap bases?

Actually, yes. This is a conflict resolution gesture. When two opponents quarrel severely is may be ruled that they must swap bodies for a time so that they can live out life in each other's flesh (memories are embedded throughout a Cetician's body).

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Original post by falkone What's wrong with other races being afraid of them? Humans afraid of an unappealing but otherwise benevolent race would add a bit of interest..

Well, I guess as long as you're not inspired to shoot on sight... yes, I agree with you, actually.

This gets into the notion of whether or not games can successfully challenge stereotypes, and if so, how.

Aside from fear, another natural human reaction to the aliens would be to assume that they are unintelligent, because these creatures possess no identifiable head or face.