Government Name: Naltan Triumvirate
Species Names: Abala, Kintet, Jorvian
Home system details: The Naltan system has a yellow-white sun slightly larger and hotter than Sol. Its planetary system has a fairly standard mix of terrestrial planets, gas giants and has two asteroid belts. Naltan is notable for the presence of three habitable bodies within its Goldilocks Zone. The closest to the star is Ren, the largest moon, of the gas giant Naltar II. Ren is slightly less massive than Earth and no other orbital bodies of Naltar II approach its size.
Further out are Mennet and Kolja which form a double planet with a common centre of gravity and have a shared atmosphere. Mennet and Kolja are of similar size, both roughly the size of Mars, and as such are tidally locked.
Homeworld Details (Ren): Being on the inner edge of the Goldilocks Zone leaves Ren a very warm moon, a situation only exacerbated by the light reflected of Naltar II. As such, Ren is an ocean world with no polar ice caps, dry land is scarce and consists nearly entirely of island chains along tectonic fault lines with a smattering of volcanic islands. Most islands are in the size range represented by the Caribbean islands and the largest is similar in size to Iceland.
Native fauna are, with the exception of a few island lizard species, aquatic, amphibious (including the Abala, the native sentients) or avian. There are more terrestrial flora that grow on the islands but the majority of species are aquatic.
Abala cities are located across the globe at all depths but the major cities are located in the shallows surrounding the islands, which are all covered in industrial sites. The major city is Jint, based around Ren's largest island. The capital is a wholly artificial city floating in the ocean - a poliberg if you will - anchored near to the artificial island occupying the near point to Naltar II that is home to Ren's largest spaceport.
Species Description (Abala): The Abala are smooth skinned amphibians possessed of gills and lungs. They are bilaterally symmetrical with three pairs of limbs, the lower/hind and upper/fore limbs are webbed and operate as flippers in water or legs on land. The mid limbs are used for manipulation and have seven non webbed digits, two of which are opposable.
The Abala do tend to desiccate if too long out of water and are physically comparatively weak but this is compensated for by high intelligence, quick reaction times and excellent senses of sight and hearing. They are able to adapt to rapidly changing pressures and are possessed of a bioluminescence that they can activate at will although it can be triggered by strong emotion.
Abala are hermaphroditic and are polygamous by nature, tending to engage in a number of brief, passionate encounters during their reproductive periods although they can reproduce parthenogenically if unable to find a partner. Abala lay eggs in clutches between three and six, it is common for each egg in a clutch to have a different father and the young are raised by their mother. As this method of rearing, along with the fact that during mating both partners can be fertilised, means that Abala may have many sibilings they did not grow up with they have chemoreceptors on their skin that can identify the pheromones of near relatives and prevent sexual attraction.
Species History (Abala): The Abala evolved in the southern polar waters of Ren. Much like humans the first major development was the transition from a hunter-gatherer to an agrarian society, farming various flora and crawling sea bed dwelling species and developing the first burrows in the sea bed in which they could shelter from the storms that stirred up the waters.
As it is impossible to use fire underwater the Stone Age of the Abala was particularly lengthy, however they were able to develop pottery by leaving shaped clay to bake on islands during hot, dry days.
As the Abala spread across Ren nations formed and inevitably went to war. With ceramics being the basic tools and weapons of the Abala the wars were inevitably waged over rich clay deposits and equatorial islands on the far side from the planet, upon which the baking process went much faster.
Eventually the far side shallows became dominated by the Larta Empire with other nations forced into the less valuable deep, polar and near side waters. Within the Empire a population boom put a squeeze on living space forcing them to dig deeper burrows discovering copper bearing rocks in the process.
Cold forged copper gave the Empire superior tools, but the discovery quickly spread and other nations discovered richer deposits in their own territory, allowing them to compete with the Larta and eventually leading to the Empires collapse.
After this materials technology stagnated, barring the periodic discovery of other metals, until the accidental discovery that fire previously only known as an occupational hazard of pottery bakers could be used to soften and melt metals.
Following the discovery forges were set up on the islands, alloys were developed and the Abala propelled into a Bronze Age.
Another series of wars were fought as the nations tried to utilise the new discoveries to their advantage and particularly intelligent Abalans were sponsored to further development to aid these war efforts.
With this patronage of science and technology Abalan society progressed from the Bronze Age to a proto-industrial society in a few brief centuries of nearly constant warfare that became known as the Blood Age.
As the wars wound down and the survivors entered an age of unprecedented living standards the scientists managed to maintain their funding out of fear that the wars could resume at any time pushing further development. Slowly the fear of war receded and the scientists were able to turn their developments to civilian use and focus on theoretical science.
It was during this period that many of the advances were made in atomic physics that would make the forthcoming war so destructive and spur the Abalans to leave the surface of Ren.
As the Abalan population again grew to unsustainable levels the old conflicts began again. Once more the attention of the scientists turned to the technology of destruction and nuclear weapons were soon developed and turned upon the enemy. With such power unleashed entire cities were wiped out and the seas tainted by radiation. Horrified by the results of their work the scientists began to reach out across national boundaries to their fellows. Secretly they concocted a way to end the wars and issued a joint statement to all the nations that if the wars continued all technological developments would be shared. The governments signed peace within a week.
In the ensuing years the Abalan scientific community collaborated to gain political power off their popularity as the instigators of the end of the war. Eventually the Technocracy was developed as a transnational body to mediate between governments, but as political scientists gained more influence over national governments the Technocracy became the
de facto Abalan world government.
With global unity the Abalans focussed on space travel to prevent a repeat of the overpopulation crisis, beginning with orbital unmanned orbital vehicles progressing to manned orbits and satellites, eventually setting up a robotic hydrogen mining operation in orbit of Naltar II to prepare for development of the rest of the Naltar II moon system. Three manned missions had been sent to other moons to investigate their potential as a colony when the first Jorvian probe made a flypast of Ren.
Homeworld Details (Mennet and Kolja): The curious orbital configuration of Mennet and Kolja means they are very similar, a number of avian and insect species have been present on both planets since before any sentient made the journey, and many plant species also made the journey. Both planets are covered in water over 60-80% of their surfaces, the actual figure varying as water moves between the two worlds in an approximately twenty-two year cycle.
The water cycle between the two planets means the native species are very adaptable, shorter lived species can often display marked differences between parent and child as the water available to them can be incredibly different. This is most notable on the far sides of both planets as the majority of the water is naturally located closer to the common centre of mass. The same effect can be seen in aquatic species although the variations are due to the change in salinity instead of water volume.
Both planets have oceans on the near side, although Mennet has a small permanent continent occupying the exact near point (a large island emerges on Kolja several miles from the exact near point for about seventeen months either side of the lowest point in the planetary water cycle). Cities on both planets tend to be built some distance inland to protect them from the variable sea level leading to both planets being less urbanised than those of similarly developed races. On the flip side the cities are considerably more crowded than other races counterparts.
Since the establishment of the duumvirate both planets have their capital at the planetary near points - which required the construction of a massive artificial island on Kolja. These capitals are linked by space elevator to the Sphere (officially the Mennet-Kolja Interplanetary Satellite), a large satellite built around the common centre of gravity that hosts peerforms a number of functions including hosting the parliament of the triumvirate (formerly that of the duumvirate), interplanetary business and commerce (many companies have head office in the Sphere and it contains the largest shopping centre in the Naltar system) and tourism (as well as being the main link between Mennet and Kolja the Sphere is the principal space port for both planets).
Species Description (Kintet): The Kintet are a large, beetle-like species. They are bilaterally symmetrical with eight limbs. Of the limbs, four are legs, two are powerful arms with crushing claws and two are more delicate arms with smaller manipulator claws. They are exosceletal and have a thick carapace, although their underbelly is very soft. During their juvenile phase they possess wings and can fly short distances but these are lost upon adulthood, the wing cases of males and females fuse shut but they remain separate for neuters.
The Kintet are technically trigendered, having females, males and 'neuters' (in a similar manner to terrestrial worker bees neuters are hatched from unfertilised eggs). When reproducing females lay unfertilised eggs within the wing case of a neuter which are then fertilised by one more males. The neuter then broods the eggs until they hatch and keeps them safe within its wing case during their larval phase and raises them thereafter whilst the female provides food - most males have no contact with their offspring. A typical Kintet family consists of one female, one neuter and usually between two and five young (the female lays hundreds of eggs but as the neuter does not provide a milk analogue to the larvae, a larval Kintet's only source of nutrition is its siblings).
Male Kintet are large, powerful and their carapace is much thicker than the other genders. In many males the manipulator arms are atrophied from lack of use - males far prefer to use their claw arms. Males are promiscuous and prone to violence, they play little part in Kintet society outside of the army.
Females are less powerful than males but quicker witted. Their carapaces are not as thick but their manipulator arms see more use and are better developed. They make up the backbone of Kintet society carrying out most manufacturing jobs.
Neuters come between the males and females in size, although over all their carapace is similar in thickness to females it is much thicker over the wing case. They are by far the most intelligent of the genders and make up the political, academic and professional classes of Kintet society.
Species History (Kintet): Coming soon
Species Description (Jorvian): The Jorvian species is saurian in nature with a society similar in many respects to terrestrial colonial insects. Historically there are three castes of Jorvians all with varying physical appearances. Queens are the rarest caste, non sentient and are dedicated egg layers, drones are barely sentient and are the warriors of the Jorvians and in addition fertilise the eggs of the queens, finally the workers make up the majority of the Jorvian population, there are several worker sub-castes (builders, nurses, scouts) but they are physically very similar. Jorvian workers are all sentient and have varying intelligence which appears to be influenced by subcaste.
The basic physical for of a Jorvian is similar to a human - bipedal, bilaterally symmetrical, two arms and a head on a short neck - but they are scaly, have a prehensile tail, lack a nose (their tongue doubles up for olfactory duties), have four eyes, their ears are on the neck and their hands have four digits including the thumb which is on the opposite side of the hand to a human thumb.
As it is impossible to convey the full spectrum of Jorvian forms due to the centuries of selective breeding and genetic manipulation we shall focus on the historical forms.
Queens are bloated creatures with any organ not related to the creation of new young or providing itself with nutrition atrophied. An adult queen is incapable of movement under her own power so must be guarded by drones and tended by workers.
Drones are large and hulking. Their brains are small but their skulls are of a similar size to workers due to extra bone mass. They have sharp talons on their fingers and wicked teeth as well as numerous bone spurs on their arms and legs. Despite their low intelligence their reflexes are second to none and they have excellent hand-eye coordination, making them highly skilled with weapons.
Workers conform closely to the description above so shall not be further described, with the exception of mentioning that the nurse subcaste is possessed of nipples in her armpit that secrete a royal jelly like substance used to feed young Jorvians. The chemical make up of this substance is related to the diet of the nurse and regulates the subcaste a worker will become. A female infant fed sufficient quantities will develop into a queen regardless of the chemical composition.
Species History (Jorvian): Coming soon
Technology: Due to the varying technological development processes of the three races making up the triumvirate the triumvirate as a whole makes use of wildly diverse technologies. As much conflict between the Abala occurred underwater beam weaponry and explosively propelled munitions were of limited use, instead nearly all Abala weapons were self propelled and this has carried over to warship design, torpedoes are the primary weapon systems on Abala vessels with beams and guns limited to point defences.
Jorvian ships have a biological brain as the CPU and prefer to use beam weapons.
As the Kintet style of warfare is based on the principle of getting the males into melee as quickly as possible they tend to focus on carrier warfare, with female piloted fighters defending the carriers and their payloads as they deliver boarding pods full of male marines to enemy vessels. As a side effect of this strategy the triumvirate navy has more than a few captured vessels on its registry, often crewed by Kintet.
All three races make use of fusion reactors as a power source and use the helium by product as reaction mass, however Kintet and Jorvian vessels use ion drives as their primary means of propulsion, preferring to save reaction mass for emergency manoeuvres whereas the Abala, with easy access to hydrogen from Naltar II, will freely use helium as a primary source of thrust and in emergency situations will use the vessels hydrogen fuel as reaction mass.
Location and Color: U4,S5 aquamarine
For a colour, I would like a light orange or pink, whatever looks better on the map.
