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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.

I'm not sure where the xenophobia is coming from. These things remind me more of a giant mushroom or fungus or something. I don't see anything hostile about them. They move very slowly, they don't have any teeth (that I can see). They're roundish, and symetrical - pretty peaceful looking to me, actually.

I can agree that they might be unnerving in a way, what with no face to judge emotion by, and being so large. But to me, they seem more like a "gentle giant" than anything else.

Another race building exercise, so let see.

Name: The Trilene

The first thing that comes to mind is that that the Trilene are very slow to make decisions. Do to there their extreme longevetiy and time shifting abilites they never rush to make any decision. Instead they debate a great length as to the proper course of action analyzing all possible out comes before making a decision.

The society itself is one centered around research and knowledge. They are govenerned by a commitee of Trilene, there a no fixed number of seats in the commity instead all adult Trilene may serve on the commitee provided that they have a massed sufficent research credits for the comming term. Reasarch credits are obtained through a combination or field work, reports and lectures. The standard length of service on the commitee is one 500 year term, after which a person must re-apply for seat and be re-evaluated.

The Trilene have no religious beliefs, which they feel are nothing more then supersition. However they do belive in something known as the pattern. The pattern is a set of underlying principles that govern the whol universe. They belive that by studying galatic events of all sizes they can eventually uncover the pattern. The oldest of the Trilene who have devoted themeselves to unravelling the the pattern are able to predict the out of come of imporant events.

well I'm out of time so, I'll have to finish up another day.

To contiune:

While prized for the their pursuit of knowledge the Trilene are also regarded with suspicion. Many historians and races have noted throughout history that planets of interest to the Trilene eventually become part of the Trilene empire, also that rivial empires too close to Trilene space suffer unexpected difficulties and gradually weaken or abadone that area of space. While the cause differs for natural disasters to econmic reason. There has also never been any proof that the Trilene had anything to do with those circumstance but yet many are aprensive when dealing with them. The two most famous examples of this are the Salm and DioDine.

The Salm where an idustrious hard working aquatic race that where so proficent in production that supply quickly far outstretched demand. Because of this they developed space faring technology as an outlet for their excess production. They first race they met because of this was the Trilene. The Salm also had an unsual genetic abnormality they where unable to reproduce outside of their home planet. The Salm eager for new customers where happy when they met the Trilene who began to buy massive quantities of a rare ore found on the Salm home world. The demand was so great for this ore that it became the Salm primary industry. However unknown to Salm the mining of this mineral was generating harmful gases and within 300 years the Salm homeworld was rendered unihabitable and the Salm race became extinct within 100 years after that.

The DioDine on the other hand where a race of warlike lizards who frequently raided Trilene space. However that only last a few hundred years when their sun when super nova destroying the DioDine home world.

Question: Can this race move backwards in time, or can they only change the rate that time goes forward as the Ku Kuei do in Orson Scott Card's Treason. In fact, your description of this race looks like a cross between the Ku Kuei, and the Traeki from David Brin's Uplift series. Except for what they look like, anyway. In any case what has been said here so far looks good (I especially liked TechnoGoth's comment about the supernova). I can't think of anything useful to add, except maybe that their being asexual may make people joke about them. They, being their benevolent selves, will just laugh along.

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Original post by Nathaniel Hammen Question: Can this race move backwards in time, or can they only change the rate that time goes forward

Thanks for asking. They can only slow or speed time, not reverse it.

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as the Ku Kuei do in Orson Scott Card's Treason. In fact, your description of this race looks like a cross between the Ku Kuei, and the Traeki from David Brin's Uplift series.

I haven't read OSC's treason in a long time, that's an interesting reminder. And, yes, I wanted something as alien as the Traeki (Brin's been a heavy inspiration in creating TRULY different races, not just the humans with funny ears or noses that's common in fantasy and sci-fi)

@TechnoGoth: Thanks for the story line. I like the idea that these guys could be nice unless you mess with them, but they may take action centuries later.

I don't know if genocide would be their style, though. Do you think they need more teeth? (Maybe I'm seeing them as too nice).

If anything, with being able to strategize over aeons, they would convert more races to their side and hem in other races. It may not be that they can outplan other races, but they can stick to a given plan that might take 1000 years.


I'm trying to think of a way to make the two scenarios you proposed a bit less deadly, but I'm a bit creativity challenged atm.

Then again, maybe its a paradox: Can you still be good natured, yet act in an apparently evil fashion to head of a threat you see thousands of years down the line, for which you've had prior experience?

I dunno why you would want to change their appearance. I think you have got a pretty solid concept here.
One thing you might wanna try, to give them more expression, would be something akin to what cuttlefish uses for their camouflage. Have various patterns appear on their skin to reflect emotions/expressions.
Possibly this could be a defense mechanism as well, but mostly in their case it would be for visual communication.
Of course this would be a bit annoying for the artists to do, but still.

Also, for the fear of people shooting at them, why not use their basic time control abilities to ... can you say the Matrix... slow down bullets and other projectiles directed at them.

I dunno why but I can totally imagine them giggle at your futile attempts and then talk to you with the voice of the doctor in The Simpsons... :-P

Oh, another little thing that bugged me. They have no eyes, nor hands. WHY would they have books ?
I would have thought something more like the pools and fountains of various liquids of the Treants, or maybe what would to an observer look like a garden, or some other sort of organic assemblage.

Anyway, what a cool race concept !
I could totally see them appear in a show like Farscape :) They really give me the same vibe than the Pilots race, for some reason. Maybe their only opportunity to travel would be to leave their massive frame behind and implant their core into the very structure of a spaceship (the spaceship becoming a body frame for all Ceticians on board)
Or maybe the bodies would be taken on board but wouldnt actually be used, rather they'd be stored somewhere safe (or useful ? Maybe the amassed bodies could be the time distortion engine itself) and the cores would be implanted on specific locations of the ships designed to receive them ?

Mmmh...