Welcome to the Universe

[SleepingOrange]

An alien, then? Alright, so... Are you a Jeija?



Jeijï are native to a very lush garden world; the closest approximation to their name for it is Otrini. It is approximately 10000 km in diameter, so its gravity is approximately three-quarters that of Terre; this has produced an ecosystem full of slender, gangly plants and animals. Jeijï are actually unusual in that respect: while they have the slender limbs typical to their planet, they are much smaller than most animal life; an adult female (typically a handful of centimeters taller than their male counterparts) stands about 60 centimeters tall on average. This means that, compared to their larger alien counterparts, they are somewhat weak and fragile, but extremely fast and dextrous. They are even unusually nimble for their size, making excellent pilots, mechanics, and sharpshooters.

Terran scientists note that they have several traits that resemble those of terran cephalopods, including well-developed eyes and brains, tentacles, and bioluminescence. A Jeija in conversation will largely-unconsciously change the color, pattern, and brightness of the luminescent cells on their mantle; these flashes and colors add connotation, emotion, and intensity to their words. Non-Jeijï, even prominent xenolinguists, have extreme difficulty interpreting these cues, so Jeijï have a reputation for sounding very deadpan and unemotional.

As a small species on a planet of large species, Jeijï have evolved a number of adaptations to aid their survival: while omnivorous, Jeijï have a very slow metabolism normally only seen in sedentary herbivores; this allows them to consume very little, meaning they have to hunt and forage only rarely. For those times when they are in a vulnerable position that may expose them to predation, they have an acidic spit they can launch over impressive distances with notorious accuracy; in addition to being painful and caustic, a well-aimed spurt can cause permanent blindness.

Culturally, the Jeijï have a reputation for being thoughtful, polite, and careful. They live extremely long lives and reproduce only rarely; a 400-year old will probably only have two offspring, and wouldn't expect grandchildren until 700 or so. In the unlikely event that a Jeijï survives the centuries to die of natural causes, they can expect to see 1200 or so; the oldest Jeija to date is currently alive and recently celebrated his 1623rd birthday.

Current estimates place Jeijï populations at about 250; Jeijï society emphasizes the rights of the individual and peaceful cooperation rather than enforced rules. There is no Jeijï government, and no code of law on Otrini. Jeijï scientists are notoriously clever and inventive, and Otrini's tech level is even higher than that of some established Governance species.

Or are you perhaps an Afu?



Afus come from a planet they call Zharu; it is extremely inhospitable to humans, and indeed most sapient life: the atmosphere is choked with carbon dioxide and large organic molecules, and the seas (which cover some 30% of the planet) are primarily bromine. Only slightly smaller than Terre, Zharu's atmosphere keeps the temperature at a level most species can survive, but are extremely uncomfortable in; conversely, an Afu on another planet will likely feel unpleasantly cold without some sort of climate control, and will require a breather mask to provide the cocktail of gasses they need to breathe.

An individual Afu is actually not an individual; any given Afu is a collection of tiny lifeforms, connected by a hive mind and led by a queen: the vaguely-hominid bodies seen by most are actually something of a living hive, a biological construct operated by the tiny beings inside it. The red area on the front contains the queen, who in addition to producing drones to sustain the colony has a number of sensory organs that her subjects lack or have stunted versions of; she communicates this information and directs the colony's movements and activities. Even the queen herself, however, is largely unintelligent: any Afu component on its own acts solely on instinct and is largely helpless; only when they are together and communicate do emergent intelligences become apparent.

Due to their unusual neural structure, which is actually composed of thousands of Afu drones specialized for data storage and communication, Afu have a natural knack for psionics, and actually discovered them independently well before space travel. Even an untrained Afu will probably have a power or two. Their many-in-one nature also gives them unparalleled reflexes and speed of thought, but requires much more food and air than a normal being of their size (an average hive stands between five and six feet tall).

Afu are fiercely democratic, allowing any adult colony to weigh in on any matter of government or law that it chooses to; non-Afu are often surprised by that fact, given that an individual organism has next to no free will or identity. Afu languages typically use a word meaning closer to "we" than "I" to refer to oneself, but most that learn alien languages or deal with other cultures adapt their speech patterns. Afu have little in the way of "typical" personalities: where one can make somewhat accurate guesses about the general personality types expected from many species, Afu personalities are as varied as humans'.

Given their alien outlook and psionic powers, some sapients maintain prejudice against Afu even in the relatively cosmopolitan galactic society. Since their technology is less advanced than most species and they are distinctly less detached from their biological roots than many, they are regarded as dangerous savages by the prejudiced minority.

If you are a Jeija, what gender are you? And either way, what's your name?

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Obviously Star Trek but it seems original

I wouldn't actually know, never having actually watched an episode of Star Trek. I guess it might be pretty reminiscent, albeit by coincidence.

[AvzinElkein]

Jeija, Gender 6, Yka.

[Coyote]

Afu. Your name is the Trickster Troup.

[Asmodemus]

Afu, your name is Legion. You had no idea about the earth Terre Legion.

[Xelkelvos]

Afu. Your name is Meni

[Tseralith]

Jeijï, male and named Dren

[Fruckert]

Jeij'i

[A Fan]

Jeija, female, Jujifluup

[Isoraķatheð]

Jeljï, of course. Gender 2 if you will, but a Gender 9 if you have one (which matches with yours, Not Naming Any Names, Órëndжǵalyoþan.)

Name: Oryat Iran Ótŕiinii "Quanya'oriẅu". Or just Oryat for short.

I really have to quit naming characters like that.

ALSO:

How do you pronounce Jeljï anyway? Due to my conlang completely changing how I pronounce stuff, I pronounce it ['jɛljy] (YELL-yü (German Ü) for those who don't know IPA). Any of you guys have any idea? How about a convenient WoG?

[Akumu]

Can Afu colonies split apart and recombine with the constituents of other colonies? Does a colony ever have more than one queen? How specialized are the individual organisms?

[thriggle]

Given it has a distinct body, I would think it's more of a colony organism in the sense of a Siphonophore, rather than a cooperative swarm of social insects. But I could be wrong.

I vote Afu.

Name, uh...

Afu, your name is Legion. You had no idea about the earth Terre Legion.

[Tseralith]

Jeljï, of course. Gender 2 if you will, but a Gender 9 if you have one (which matches with yours, Not Naming Any Names, Órëndжǵalyoþan.)

Name: Oryat Iran Ótŕiinii "Quanya'oriẅu". Or just Oryat for short.

I really have to quit naming characters like that.

ALSO:

How do you pronounce Jeljï anyway? Due to my conlang completely changing how I pronounce stuff, I pronounce it ['jɛljy] (YELL-yü (German Ü) for those who don't know IPA). Any of you guys have any idea? How about a convenient WoG?

This here says ï is pronounced as [aj], as in cycle and bite. I think Jeijï is pronounced like ['jɛijaj] in this case. I'm not 100% sure though

[SleepingOrange]

All of the following is likely unnecessary to the enjoyment of this adventure, but you might find it interesting. Anyone put off by the wall of text, don't worry; you don't have to read it.

How do you pronounce Jeljï anyway? Due to my conlang completely changing how I pronounce stuff, I pronounce it ['jɛljy] (YELL-yü (German Ü) for those who don't know IPA). Any of you guys have any idea? How about a convenient WoG?

In English an umlaut typically denotes diaeresis; however, linguists transcribing Jeijan language co-opted the rarely-used symbol to represent the Jeijan phoneme created by rapidly shifting air from one acid-propulsion sac to the other. In the actual language, the sound is something of a squelching pop, but human speakers typically ignore the sound entirely or do their best by using a bilabial click. Because the sound isn't exactly reproducible by human mouths, there is no technically correct pronunciation; the most accepted versions are "jā-ʐ̺ē" or "jā-ʐ̺ʘē" with the click pronounced with a suction of air rather than expulsion. Note of course that these representations are themselves flawed due to the IPA not being designed for alien sound clusters. Because the latter is hard to pronounce and still fairly inaccurate, the former is preferred, especially for casual speakers.

For anyone put off by all the weird symbols, it's essentially JAY-zhee or JAYZH-*pop*-ee, where "zh" is essentially a rolled "j" or buzzing noise. The singular, Jeija, is just pronounced JAY-zhuh.

Can Afu colonies split apart and recombine with the constituents of other colonies? Does a colony ever have more than one queen? How specialized are the individual organisms?

To reproduce, two Afu colonies will meet; one will provide a larval queen, while the other provides a few reproduction drones, servitor drones, and construction drones. The new colony will then be put somewhere safe and left to its own devices; this is the closest Afu get to colonial recombination. With the exception of specialized reproduction drones, individual Afu organisms are largely incapable of communicating with non-familial drones; a helpful analogy may be human blood types: an a-positive colony and a b-negative colony are incompatible and trying to mix them would be dangerous. Afu scientists have intermittently attempted to refine a process called acclimatization, whereby individual non-familial drones are forced to live near each other or undergo genetic manipulation in an attempt to force them to adapt to one another, but results have been disappointing at best.

It is actually rare that a colony has less than two queens; the lifespan of a queen is much less than that of a colony, so having redundant queens ensures a colony will never be left without sensory organs or a way to produce more drones. However, there is almost always only one active queen, as multiple would produce far too many drones (rather analogous to cancer, really) and sensory input would be confusing, distorted, and barely-interpretable. Such a condition is called polyregicy or Geyeni's syndrome; it is very rare, and in modern times hardly dangerous: the extra queen is simply surgically removed or chemically exterminated and the extra drones gradually die off. In ancient shamanic Afu cultures, however, colonies that developed polyregicy were regarded as messengers of the spirits, since their hallucinatory daze produced visions and trance-like states; sadly, such Ganari-tan'ri as they were called typically died fairly quickly as their bodies required more nourishment than could be provided and produced more waste than could be dealt with, and such colonies' higher mental faculties degenerate rather quickly.

Individual drones are very specialized: they are born undifferentiated, but servitor drones feed them specialized cocktails of foods that signal their growing bodies to develop in certain ways. There are hundreds of types in a colony, but fall into a few general classes:

Queen: receives sensory input and transfers it to neural drones; produces larval drones.

Neural: store data, communicate with other drones, play a role in directing colonial movement and development. Specialized types include psion drones, memory drones, assimilation drones, and dozens more.

Servitor: ensure other drones are healthy and fed, transmit messages, maintain colony body. The largest class of drones, they do most things.

Constructor: very few in an established colony at any given time, they are responsible for creating and essentially becoming the colonial housing. Originally analogous to embryonic tissue, eventually become analogous to muscles.

Reproduction: smallest class of drone with only two types. Nurse drones tend to larvae after the have been assigned their type, while transmission drones serve to fertilize new colonial queens. Some scholars argue that nurse drones belong more with the servitor class, but others point to the nurse drone's morphological similarities to transmission drones.

Extermination: the colony's defense and immune systems. Kill or remove foreign matter, tend to or kill sick drones, defend growing colonies from predation.

Given it has a distinct body, I would think it's more of a colony organism in the sense of a Siphonophore, rather than a cooperative swarm of social insects. But I could be wrong.

The body, as intimated, is composed of constructor drones that have undergone transformation into specialized muscle-like forms, which are themselves housed in a "hive" composed of both organic and inorganic components. For construction, imagine a combination of bees, paper wasps, and mud-daubers; the hive is made of things created by the constructors and gathered from the environment.

Still, calling them social insects would only be mildly appropriate; the scale of most drones is along the lines of rotifers or moss piglets, with only the largest warriors being macroscopic. Afu straddle a line somewhere between a beehive and a siphonophore.

[Yamtaggler]

I'm digging Jeijï. I'm not sure about gender, Females are bigger so that sounds good I guess. Name? I don't know Jeijï naming traditions, so I have no clue.

[dragonpaul99]

You are a male Jeija, and you are 146 years old. You and your wife have only been married for about a year and have just finished your honeymoon. Your Great-Grandfather has recently turned 1623 and has promised that his great fortune will go to whichever of his great-grandchildren can accomplish the most in life before he dies. (You have no idea what he means by this, he tends to be very vague.) Your opponents are your older sister, your 2 cousins, and your 3 second cousins. You are your wife have decided to leave your home and try to make your way in the universe, and if possible win the vast amount of money. (But if you don't, that's cool too, you'll still have whatever you've managed to accomplish trying to win, and at least it will go towards your immediate family.) You're not sure that your family has the same additude about this as you though, particularly your sister, who is known to be a bit crazy at times. Since you are the youngest in your family, you are at a bit of a disadvantage, since your opponents already have jobs, homes, families, etc. You and your wife will be landing at the Mertiast Spaceport within the hour. How shall you start your quest?

P.S. This is an awesome adventure already. Feel free to ignore my plot idea entirely if you don't like it. Just cast my vote for the Jeija.

[Fakeimposter]

Afu, because they are awesome.

[Lap Otter]

Argh they are both awesome, I must admit to making my final decision based solely on cute. We are a Jeija! A female Jeija and I am too just-woke-up to come up with a name so whatever, the important thing is, we are a Jeija.

Do I get extra votes if I show you my boobs? :P

[Fakeimposter]

psh, this is the internet, Lap Otter, Slorange can take a gander at boobies whenever he wants.

[Lap Otter]

Well to be fair he could take a gander at my boobies whenever he wants, too. And mine are generally better than the internet's, seeing as how they are a) really pretty, b) real,and c) in person is always better than photographs.

[dragonpaul99]

I agree, Lap Otter gets infinite votes if she shows her boobs.

[Fakeimposter]

goddammit, when you appeal to the perverts that run rampant on the forums, you win every single time.

[thriggle]

Slorange, I'll show you my boobs for Afu.

[cyber95]

Jeija. Female.

[Gustave]

Jeija named Ooloop Wanzi. Whichever gender gets more acid.

[Akumu]

How high of gravity are the Jeijï able to function in, anyway? Do they have any standard prostheses to allow their limbs to withstand higher sustained stress than usual?

It seems like we're going to end up with a female Jeija so I'd like to know a bit more about them!

I suggest the name Äxoti.