Celirans - a Minor Race

[Whipsnade]

2-4601,

Well that clinches it for me.

With an emphasis on telepathy and awareness, your Celiran priestesses and shamans will be well aware of and in communication with each other long before each branch of that minor race can physically meet.

Awareness may even help them identify the location of the oasis 'stepping stones' that will help in crossing the equatorial desert.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
That's the exact reason why I said that I like where this was going. All Aslan are of ONE culture. All K'Kree. All Droyne. All Zhodani and Vilani and even (to a lesser degree) the Solomani and Vargr.

2-4601,

Remember, we're looking at all those races from a certain viewpoint and at a certian distance. From Israel or the US, China looks like a monolithic culture. As someone who has worked and spent time there I can assure you that close up China and the Chinese are as varied as anyplace else.

Taking each race mentioned in turn:

Aslan - We know the Aslan went through a wrenching Cultural Purge a few decades after acquiring jump drive. All Aslan who didn't adopt the new culture were either killed or driven off. Maps show 'heretical' Aslan states both on the Marches' 'side' of the Great Rift and far to spinward of the Heirate. One heretical state is even named' 'The Glorious Empire'. We only 'see' one culture because all other Aslan cultures are either dead or fled.

K'Kree - Pretty much the same as the Aslan. Any heretics are either dead, fled, or in hiding. Given their psychological make-up, all K'Kree cultures will have share certain precepts, just as all human cultures do.

Droyne - The form of their societies, the castes, drives it's functioning. However, the six castes are not the only ones. It is explicitly stated that that number is just a convienence used by non-Droyne. Given that some Droyne fly starships and some Droyne barely have settled agriculture, I'd think that there all varied cultures too. Again with the certain shared precepts their mental make-up provides.

Zhodani - Like China, we see the surface. That is we see the nobles and indendents. Assuming they are the sole Zho culture is like assuming the Mandarins were the sole Chinese culture during the 1800s.

Vilani - See the Zhos above. We know much of the Ziru Sirka's Rim province was settled by 'heretics' or Vilani restive under the enforced culture of the ZS. Other Vilani cultures do and did exist.

Solomani - MT's Solomani & Aslan is crammed fulled of cultural variety. Again, we're looking at the Solomani peoplethrough the narrow lens of the Solomani Party. The two are not the same thing.

Vargr - Like all sophonts, Vargr cultures share certain basic precepts stemming from their psychological make-ups, but off all of Traveller's aliens, the Vargr have the greatest number of cultures. That point is hammered home time and time again. Like the Solomani people vs. Solomani party example above, we're looking at the Vargr through the narrow lens of the corsairs.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Fritz_Brown]

2-4601,
Question: are there any large bodies of water present on these worlds (not globe-spanning like the Atlantic, but more like the Caspian or Black seas)?

Also, I wouldn't make the cultures in actual contact with each other psionically. I would take one of two routes: either the artifacts ("goddesses") were in communication with each other and so there are myths about the other cultures, or the range is just limited enough that they only "discover" each other when a nomadic tribe begins to migrate into range. The second idea would allow a gradual awareness to grow as the nomads approached each other (somehow) across the deserts, and roamed toward the poles. So, a creeping awareness grows as stories get passed about these non-physical contacts with others. Then, of course, either one can cause Bill's idea of ID'ing the oases to occur.

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
Zhodani - Like China, we see the surface. That is we see the nobles and indendents. Assuming they are the sole Zho culture is like assuming the Mandarins were the sole Chinese culture during the 1800s.

Of course, Bill, the Mandarins helped that little perception along. They certainly wouldn't have minded if there were only one culture in China, as long as it was theirs.

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Fritz88:
Of course, Bill, the Mandarins helped that little perception along. They certainly wouldn't have minded if there were only one culture in China, as long as it was theirs.

Fritz,

Exactly! What we see of other cultures is a usually only what other cultures wish us to see.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Golan2072]

By the way, Here's a young Celiran girl (age 5 to 10 standard years), named Nejala (pronounced Ne-Yala), drawn by my girlfriend; she'll draw the adult form sooner or later.

 

[Golan2072]

I can't access the first few posts of this thread... Forum error?

 

[mike wightman]

Try again now that the thread's been made active by the new posts.

 

[Golan2072]

I'm thinking of incorporating the Celirans into MTU (i.e. the Solar triumvirate universe); for that I'll have to trace their origins to Earth (as they are clearly terragen, even if not mammal in origin) in a non-Grandfather universe. Using MTU's Precursor races is a possibility - they haven't taken Humans from earth en-masse (as opposed to the OTU Ancient Droyne taking Humans everywhere as pets/slaves/test subjects), but they might have taken a reptilian lifeform or two away from Earth and uplifted it to suit several Precursor-terraformed worlds.

A more thrilling idea is to have a very ancient alien race, extinct for about 60 million years, who had, at their time, a research colony on Earth; they have taken several dinosaur, especially Teropod, samples with them to a few other planets as game animals/safari exhibits/food sources; eventually, long after this alien race killed itself in a big war (the impact that killed off the dinosaurs was in fact a very big rock dropped on their Earth colony by a rival faction, erasing most traces of the colony and causing an environmental cataclysm), the sample Teropods on one of their colony worlds eventually evolved to sentience, creating the Celirans.

On a related note, I've decided to make the Celirans far more closer to dinosaurs and birds than to mammals - they are warm-blooded and have a well-developed heart (as birds to) but they lay eggs and do not breast-feed their offsprings - they feed them bird-style, by chewing the food and then spitting it into the young's mouth. In modern times, ofcourse, they do not chew the food for their young, but mash and cook it in most cases. Consequently (sp?), their females do not have human-style infalted breasts or nipples. Oh, and their hair is a development of their head-crest scales, and their hairs are quite different from Human hairs (far thicker and more leathery and oily, and could be in "strange" colors).

 

[Golan2072]

Do not let their apparantly Humanlike shape fool you - the details betray their post-Reptilian nature; for example, their nose is very small and used only for air intake; they smell with their (forked) toung reptile-style; they lack nipples, inflated breasts or any hints of having an umbilical cord (they lay eggs and feed their young bird-style by chewed food); they have non-retractable claws, lizard-style; in some sub-species, they have swimming webs (is that the terms?) on their feet and small fins on their back and tail; they have a very long (about as long as their body) and thick prehensile tails over which they have very fine motor control; while they have warm blood, their red blood cells still have nucleii (sp?); their eyes are yellow and with vertial pupils; their "skin" is composed of gentle (or, in the case of some sub-species, quite tough and leathery) scales of a green, bluish-green or yellowish-green hue; and their vocal cords are far more developed than Human ones, and more similar to those of birds.

 

[Golan2072]

My idea for integrating the Celirans into my post-HardTimes variant of the OTU is to have an STL colony ship of theirs (TL8 big planetoid) show up at a "failing" system in the Solomani Rim sector. The PCs will have to negotiate between the locals and the Celirans in order to, in one hand, have the Celirans (who carry some TL8 productive capablities on their colony ship) to repair the local world's life-support systems and, on the other hand, get to locals to alolow the Celirans to settle on several uninhabitated worlds in the system. Normally the mutually-benefitical nature of such an agreement would make it easy to make, but the Hard Times paranoia will have to be overcome.

 

[Golan2072]

Celirans are no longer a Human minor race - they are an uplifted reptilian minor race. IMTU they weren't uplifted, but rather evolved from teropods transplanted about three subsectors to the Spinward from Earth by a Precursor race. In the OTU, they'll be lizards uplifted by the Ancients and transplsnet to another world (think "vargrization" of lizards).

Cross-posting from another thread:

While Cewlirans have "warm blood" (homeothermic; part of their uplifiting) they are NOT mammals. No breast-feeding, no pregnancy; they LAY EGGS. Their reproductive habits resemble these of birds, not mammals: remember that when you feed your hatchlings with chewed food (or cooked mash in modern society) and when everyone could roost (is that the term?) on an egg, both genders could take equal parts in raising offsprings (as is the situation with many species of birds). Moreover, as with some species of birds (such as ostriches [sp?] IIRC), others in the community/extended family could look after the youngsters when the parents are away looking for food (or, in modern society, go to work). Sure, Humans can do so, but it is far rarer due to both technical and social issues that are not much present in Celirans.

Moreover, Celiran females had, even in semi-feral times, a slightly higher-than-avarage occurance of natural psionic powers (some of which could be used even with very primitive training); male Celirans rarely have any sort of psionics. So from early times, most religious figures (shamans, priestesses etc) were female, and some of them could actually "perform miracles" (i.e. use PSI, mostly telepathy/Awareness).

Also, similar to many birds and some reptiles, the Celiran female chooses her mate (in the ur-species according to his outwards look, in the current Celiran species, ofcourse, social and personal matters are very important as well). So Celiran males tend to "peacock-up", that is pay much attention to their appearance, while females usually take a very utilitarian approach to appareal.

The result? A slightly matriarchal society (especially in religious matters), with an inclination towards strong community relations, and with very "confused" gender-roles in Human eyes.

 

[Golan2072]

I'm looking for a suitable homeworld for them in the OTU, to be used in my three favorite settings - "Golden Era", Hard Times and TNE (with Virus-toning-down modifications).

The homeworld should be TL6-7, Agricultural, habitatable (i.e. breathable atmosphere and water) and with a Hydrosphere os 40% atleast.

Candidates:
- Prosser (Shumisdi Subsector in the Diaspora Sector), EA887BB-7, Ag, PBG=910
- Pagliacci (Harlequin Subsector in the Solomani Rim Sector), C754733-6, Ag, BPG=913

The OTU backstory includes them being found by the Solomani, enslaved, "liberated" by the Imperium (but still opressed by a megacorp), and then achieving independance and even prominance in TNE (not much computers for the Virus to infest, plus habitatable societ = fast recovery and growth far beyond the original level (especially with no external intervention, but with a few working starships with which to salvage stuff...

 

[Golan2072]

I'm currently thinking about integrating the Celirans into the OTU, probably focusing on the TNE and TNE: 1248 milieu.

The Celirans would be the result of 60-70 milion years of evolution from Theropods transplanted from Earth to Renya (their homeworld) by an ancient starfaring race to use as game-animals. Renya, in the coreward-trailing part of the Canopus sector, was quite in the periphery of the Ancients' sphere of influence, but an Ancients scout base was constructed on it for various reasons, including the search or Primordial artifacts; at that time, the Celirans were only beginning to develop sentience. The destruction the Ancients' base was destroyed in the Final War (and the ecological instability which ensued) has spurred them to evolve to full sentience. Once they've achieved Human-comparable sentience (circa 10,000 years ago), their natural psions (all female) have come into mental contact with the Ancients base's damaged AI, which they've mistaken to be a "goddess".

EDIT: Concerning Renya, I've decided not to make it an Agricultural world, but rather a world which could support itself agriculturally but not a major agricultural exporter (i.e. not Ag and nor Na). The reason for this is that a homeworld for a more or less civilized race should probably have a high population (atleast several hundreds of millions, i.e. POP 8) - unless some catastrophe has happened (which didn't happen - the Solomani have only exploited the Celirans, not exterminated them).

EDIT 2: Using my revised version of the Canopus sector data, I've decided that Renya is Lysenko (Vaymo Subsector in the Canopus Sector), 2912, C463814-8, PBG=512. This data is for the Classic era. "Lysenko" is te name given to this world by the Solomani; the world is controlled by the Transstar corporation (owned by the SolParty) and used as a manor and resort world for ranking Solomani Party members in this sector, as well as an exporter of luxury goods. Technology is quite varied: the resort-manors and the security forces are typically TL13-15, the less exclusive tourist areas and most industry (as well as the startport) are TL8, and most Celirans live in TL7 conditions and are used as cheap labor and/or entertainers.