I'm skipping the checklist for now.
1. Clean up the bombastic language in general information.
“aren’t put down by anything”
2. What is the byproduct of their food consumption?
3. How does consuming metals and minerals feed their scale regeneration/production?
4. On the first layer of their scales structure, you talk with an Earth reference. Can you explain more like what they do in game? I.e. not Damascus steel.
5. The entire part about the nervous system is vague at best. You’re very specific about the metals used by the Raiken, but here you give us only a “healing agent.” Considering all the metal and other materials that go into a Raiken, this needs to be more specific.
6. Their muscles produce bacteria that attack plastics … yeah, no. I get that they aren’t flesh, but dump the bacteria production.
7. On that note — how does the nervous system interact with the muscles? If they’re bio-polymers working with a “healing agent,” does that mean they’re susceptible to electricity?
8. The entire digestive system piece is very hard to swallow. I really do not understand how they could come by feeding themselves this way, but I’m not scientifically knowledgable enough to tell for sure whether this is at all viable.
However, I can do math, and based on that, the system doesn’t work. You’re also missing half the equation.
If they mostly live life on jet fuel, they are consuming a substance that produces more than 4,462 chemical calories per pound, or 10 nutritional calories gram. Considering their size, I wouldn’t be surprised if they consumed an entire gallon of the stuff at a sitting.
That is 33,972 nutritional calories. Per gallon. Even if we cut the number down to a liter, that’s still about 8,000 calories a sitting.
Justify that number, please.
On the other end — waste? They must produce waste. Unless they have a perfect system of conversion (even Neko make waste), something is coming out the other end. What is it? How does it work? How does its mineral consumption affect it? How do they dispose of it?
I would like to know why they consume rocks for grinding food when they mostly (have to) eat kerosene.
9. Water. How does it fit in? Considering the heat and temperature they operate at, wouldn’t liquid water temperatures — hell, even moderate air temperatures — send them into violent chills? You didn’t mention anything about the Raiken having any kind of insulation for their bodies, and they're lizards for all I can tell. They're the pinnacle of hot-blooded beings, so how do they withstand any temperature change?
10. I’m not sure why there’s a third gender.
The reason I say this is because it is not only immensely inefficient, but it also requires a leap of evolution that isn’t likely.
You’ve got male and female that produce an egg at the beginning of the species’ existence. Let’s just say that happens. … Then what? You don’t have a third sex yet, and if you tear out the genitals of one sex, you’ve destroyed the ability to procreate. You can bet on getting the third sex, but then that third sex doesn’t procreate. Nevermind that the first clutches are going to come out stunted and deficient. With the rates of procreation and gestation you've stated, this species could not evolve. It would die out.
My recommendation is to dump it entirely, because the evolutionary math is not there.
Summary: Never would I want this site to become something akin to a science geek’s haven. We are storytellers first and foremost. A science degree shouldn’t be a requirement.
That said, I cannot suspend my disbelief enough to approve this race. It needs serious work.
