Zakalwe
Inactive Member
Alright, this is the race I've been working on. It isn't finished, but these are the details I've gotten so far. Criticise, but please recall it isn't finnished, and strangely this is my first race.
The typical Helian stands 5'7", and is thickly built, but is mostly like a normal humanoid. However there are important differences. A Helians skin is covered in large, dark, Carbonate plates, with milky white skin imbetween these plates. The head of a Helian is covered in these plates, like elsewhere but they are smaller, to allow for great flexibility of expression, and imbetween the plates on the top of the head (and in a rare mutation, and one of the few that are tolerated in Helian society, all over the body), are quills that usualy lie flat, but come upright when the Helian is agitated. The colour of the quills changes slightly during the day, as a general rule inverse to the brightness of the day. As such they are dark at mid-day but light and midnight. Due to the selective breeding of Helians (will be explained later), they have very good night vision, and as one of the natural traits they have maintained from there days as pray, extremely accurate hearing. There sense of smell has never been particularly accurate however. One thing that sellective breeding has never been able to remove is there teeth and digestive organs. They still have teeth designed to eat plants, not meat, and lack any form of sharp tooth, and there digestive system can not handle meat, but they usualy eat nutrient packs instead. (Other physical details will come as I come up with it).
The Helians are unusual in that they evolved from a herbivorous species, grazers and prey. Indeed in the ancient past they walked on all fours, and the quills were a defensive measure along with the carbonate plates. However they developed intelligance, which did not help them for a long time, given the ferocous and deadly wildlife of H(The E with a ^ on top, I can't get it on this computer)l, especially some of which who had aquired simmilar intelect.
The Helian herds where being slaughtered, due to one of the quickengings of the Aeaei (I'll describe them later), a rare event in itself, made worse by a degree of organisation under Cha. The only ones of the Helians that survived where the hundred thousand or so that gathered under a single leader, Sek. Sek was a visionary, and saw that the Helians where doomed unless someone took radical action, which he did.
All of the Helians retreated to a defensible area, the top of a steep plateau, where they where hard to attack from the ground (although air attack was a serious problem), and relied on the Aeaei being to busy anihilating other wildlife and the rest of their kin to bring their forces to bare against them. Here they implemented an enormous and burtal eugenics prgoram, making sure that only those which the right traights could breed.
This program lasted for thousands of generations, and transformed the Helians from the prey they where. The most notable difference was the increased bipedial nature, and their eyes having moved to the front of the head, from the side.
Coupeled with the eugenics program was a sociological one. The Helians became a martial society, and devoted most of their time to training. The exact nature of this changed over time, branching into tactics but within a hundred generations or so, the Helians where capable of mounting counter attacks from the Plateau against the Wildlife of Hel (remember the thing over the e), triumghing due to tactics and training.
This continued, the Helians gaining land gradual, and there project continuiing for many more hundreds of centuris, surmounting in the virtual anihilation of many spevies, and the enslavment of the Tonchi (again details to come later). Even the Aeaei where restricted to the badlands,. The Helians showed, and show, no intrest in expanding, since that would include a war of extinction with the Aeaei, which would accomplish nothing. So they concentrated inwards, their culture, science, and infrastructure, all designed for war.
Roughly five centuries ago, progress hampered by the existance of the Tyren's and J'straw's, the J'straw's in particular which resided in the upper atmosphere, the Helians launched there first space vehicle. The J'straw's are actually an entire eco-system, constantly preying on each other. In any case, after leaving a few sattelites in orbit, out of the reach of almost all of the J'straw, the Helians largely ignored space, and explored other science. They discovered genetics, and although they refuse to geneticly engineer, they all the regrowing of parts in some cases, and the creation of advanced medicines.
They believe that guns are second to martial weapons, and more traditional ranged weapons such as the bow, however they have embraced it in the same ruthless practise as all other weapons, and have mastered them. They have done considerable research into coil and rail weaponary, and use them often, as well as some basic laser, maser and other semi-advanced weapons. They also hgave nuclear, thermonuclear and fusion weapons, but dislike them intently, since it does not require any skill to press a button to launch the missile. It has been in melee weapons that they have shone, creating beautifull crafted weapons in all varities from the sword to the Ch'all (which resembeles a chainsaw strapped onto the back of the arm). They often have vibro-weapons (a little inelegant but effective), and monomolecular edges, as well as using advanced materials such as composits and ceramics.
A Helians training begins from birth, their childhood based around the military, and a harsh, but fair regime, extolling disciplline, martial success but not violence. For a Helian, strangely, violence is seen as an inevitablity, but not something that should be hoped for. As babies they are stimulated in this direction by subliminal messages, education and training, even before they can walk. Parents have little to do with the upbringing of their children, and only meet them once a fortnight. Emotional attachment is not encouraged. As soon as they can walk competantly the children begin serious training including unarmed combat, general weapon practise, and physical and stamina exercise. This training is hard, but carefully measured to not be too hard, at least not too hard for a Helian. When not training the Children learn, studying maths, sciences, tactics etc., using subliminal methods, and relying upon their thirst for knowledge (which all Helians, due to their personality shaping youth, have). Falling behind results in punishment, and any misbehaviour results is heavy corpral punishment.
After reaching a certain level of competancy (training level is estbalished by competance, not age), but usually around the age of 7-8, training becomes even more serious, with exercises, practise mission, and more training with more dangerous weapons. Usually by the age of 11 Helians are skilled in almost every weapon they have to offer, and begin to specialise. Their talents are also assessed for there future profession, to see whether their skill lies in simply being a soldier, or a tacticisan, leader, scinetist, commando or a variety of other careers. All of these are soldiers first and foremost however.
By the age of 16 they are full soldiers, and have been training in the art of war every waking momement for 16 years. Their abilities at this point verge on the pseudo-natural. This training lasts for the rest of their lives, but at this stage they can go into campaigns.
Helians live in their regiments, are more specificly in their units. When not on campaign or practice mission they live in their fortress', which are heavily defended arcologies spread over Helian land, although some are underground (all are partially underground), and two are in the sea. In these arcologies, and the smaller fortified cities, outposts etc. there are around 30 billion Helian soldiers, 5.5 billion children (those too young to be soldiers), and a few million in stratergy and tactical which are too old to fight but can still advise. THese numbers remain roughly stable, as the Sek doesn't think there should be much population growth.
The goverment of the Helians consists of the Sek who rules with the authaurity of the first Sek, and whose word is law. He is advised by the high counsel, which consists of the the 30 high generals. The heirachy works down from there. The lowest position is that of slave, which is most populated by the Tonchi and those who are criminals. It is not easy to stop being a slave.
Alright, that's all I have so far, however a lot more will be coming. It's just pouring out. Any advice, especially on the military side, where I know a lot of you are experianced, will be welcomed.
More coming soon.
The typical Helian stands 5'7", and is thickly built, but is mostly like a normal humanoid. However there are important differences. A Helians skin is covered in large, dark, Carbonate plates, with milky white skin imbetween these plates. The head of a Helian is covered in these plates, like elsewhere but they are smaller, to allow for great flexibility of expression, and imbetween the plates on the top of the head (and in a rare mutation, and one of the few that are tolerated in Helian society, all over the body), are quills that usualy lie flat, but come upright when the Helian is agitated. The colour of the quills changes slightly during the day, as a general rule inverse to the brightness of the day. As such they are dark at mid-day but light and midnight. Due to the selective breeding of Helians (will be explained later), they have very good night vision, and as one of the natural traits they have maintained from there days as pray, extremely accurate hearing. There sense of smell has never been particularly accurate however. One thing that sellective breeding has never been able to remove is there teeth and digestive organs. They still have teeth designed to eat plants, not meat, and lack any form of sharp tooth, and there digestive system can not handle meat, but they usualy eat nutrient packs instead. (Other physical details will come as I come up with it).
The Helians are unusual in that they evolved from a herbivorous species, grazers and prey. Indeed in the ancient past they walked on all fours, and the quills were a defensive measure along with the carbonate plates. However they developed intelligance, which did not help them for a long time, given the ferocous and deadly wildlife of H(The E with a ^ on top, I can't get it on this computer)l, especially some of which who had aquired simmilar intelect.
The Helian herds where being slaughtered, due to one of the quickengings of the Aeaei (I'll describe them later), a rare event in itself, made worse by a degree of organisation under Cha. The only ones of the Helians that survived where the hundred thousand or so that gathered under a single leader, Sek. Sek was a visionary, and saw that the Helians where doomed unless someone took radical action, which he did.
All of the Helians retreated to a defensible area, the top of a steep plateau, where they where hard to attack from the ground (although air attack was a serious problem), and relied on the Aeaei being to busy anihilating other wildlife and the rest of their kin to bring their forces to bare against them. Here they implemented an enormous and burtal eugenics prgoram, making sure that only those which the right traights could breed.
This program lasted for thousands of generations, and transformed the Helians from the prey they where. The most notable difference was the increased bipedial nature, and their eyes having moved to the front of the head, from the side.
Coupeled with the eugenics program was a sociological one. The Helians became a martial society, and devoted most of their time to training. The exact nature of this changed over time, branching into tactics but within a hundred generations or so, the Helians where capable of mounting counter attacks from the Plateau against the Wildlife of Hel (remember the thing over the e), triumghing due to tactics and training.
This continued, the Helians gaining land gradual, and there project continuiing for many more hundreds of centuris, surmounting in the virtual anihilation of many spevies, and the enslavment of the Tonchi (again details to come later). Even the Aeaei where restricted to the badlands,. The Helians showed, and show, no intrest in expanding, since that would include a war of extinction with the Aeaei, which would accomplish nothing. So they concentrated inwards, their culture, science, and infrastructure, all designed for war.
Roughly five centuries ago, progress hampered by the existance of the Tyren's and J'straw's, the J'straw's in particular which resided in the upper atmosphere, the Helians launched there first space vehicle. The J'straw's are actually an entire eco-system, constantly preying on each other. In any case, after leaving a few sattelites in orbit, out of the reach of almost all of the J'straw, the Helians largely ignored space, and explored other science. They discovered genetics, and although they refuse to geneticly engineer, they all the regrowing of parts in some cases, and the creation of advanced medicines.
They believe that guns are second to martial weapons, and more traditional ranged weapons such as the bow, however they have embraced it in the same ruthless practise as all other weapons, and have mastered them. They have done considerable research into coil and rail weaponary, and use them often, as well as some basic laser, maser and other semi-advanced weapons. They also hgave nuclear, thermonuclear and fusion weapons, but dislike them intently, since it does not require any skill to press a button to launch the missile. It has been in melee weapons that they have shone, creating beautifull crafted weapons in all varities from the sword to the Ch'all (which resembeles a chainsaw strapped onto the back of the arm). They often have vibro-weapons (a little inelegant but effective), and monomolecular edges, as well as using advanced materials such as composits and ceramics.
A Helians training begins from birth, their childhood based around the military, and a harsh, but fair regime, extolling disciplline, martial success but not violence. For a Helian, strangely, violence is seen as an inevitablity, but not something that should be hoped for. As babies they are stimulated in this direction by subliminal messages, education and training, even before they can walk. Parents have little to do with the upbringing of their children, and only meet them once a fortnight. Emotional attachment is not encouraged. As soon as they can walk competantly the children begin serious training including unarmed combat, general weapon practise, and physical and stamina exercise. This training is hard, but carefully measured to not be too hard, at least not too hard for a Helian. When not training the Children learn, studying maths, sciences, tactics etc., using subliminal methods, and relying upon their thirst for knowledge (which all Helians, due to their personality shaping youth, have). Falling behind results in punishment, and any misbehaviour results is heavy corpral punishment.
After reaching a certain level of competancy (training level is estbalished by competance, not age), but usually around the age of 7-8, training becomes even more serious, with exercises, practise mission, and more training with more dangerous weapons. Usually by the age of 11 Helians are skilled in almost every weapon they have to offer, and begin to specialise. Their talents are also assessed for there future profession, to see whether their skill lies in simply being a soldier, or a tacticisan, leader, scinetist, commando or a variety of other careers. All of these are soldiers first and foremost however.
By the age of 16 they are full soldiers, and have been training in the art of war every waking momement for 16 years. Their abilities at this point verge on the pseudo-natural. This training lasts for the rest of their lives, but at this stage they can go into campaigns.
Helians live in their regiments, are more specificly in their units. When not on campaign or practice mission they live in their fortress', which are heavily defended arcologies spread over Helian land, although some are underground (all are partially underground), and two are in the sea. In these arcologies, and the smaller fortified cities, outposts etc. there are around 30 billion Helian soldiers, 5.5 billion children (those too young to be soldiers), and a few million in stratergy and tactical which are too old to fight but can still advise. THese numbers remain roughly stable, as the Sek doesn't think there should be much population growth.
The goverment of the Helians consists of the Sek who rules with the authaurity of the first Sek, and whose word is law. He is advised by the high counsel, which consists of the the 30 high generals. The heirachy works down from there. The lowest position is that of slave, which is most populated by the Tonchi and those who are criminals. It is not easy to stop being a slave.
Alright, that's all I have so far, however a lot more will be coming. It's just pouring out. Any advice, especially on the military side, where I know a lot of you are experianced, will be welcomed.
More coming soon.
