Forced Evolutionary Crisis | Aquatic-terrestrial omnivorous owl-frogs | wtf
unaffiliated | hostile xenophobes
The Tragic (Devolved)
The Soven are defined by their deep, unabiding hatred for all alien life. It has united the entire species, defined their cultural identity, and drives all technological progress they have made. "Soven" in the native tongue translates roughly as "unquenchable vitriol." The Soven do not tolerate any other alien civilization, whether Nihil, Milieu, or unaffiliated. They hate all, equally, with the full measure of their being. In all the galaxy, the depth and sheer ferocity of their hatred is unrivaled.
Curiously, opinions of the Soven range from pity and sympathy to perfect ambivalence; no one especially hates the Soven. Their history is at once both short and filled with tragedy; the Soven are relatively recently evolved and become members of the galactic community. Their history traces back to a species called the Verd.
The Soven homeworld, Veril, was once a typical main-sequence planet, well suited to the development of life. Lush forests, wide plains, mountains and lowlands, rivers, lakes, and oceans, Veril was similar to Earth, or any other homeworld where CHO-mains have evolved. Eventually, the Verd emerged as the dominant, civilizing species on Veril. A squat, flightless, mammal-avian species, the Verd resembled a pouchless, owl-penguin-kangaroo hybrid. Beakless carnivores, they were well suited to hunting and evading across most of Veril's biomes.
Unfortunately, Veril is located within Nihil space. To the Ra'u who discovered and studied the Verd, they were simply another of countless main-sequence species. Evolved from aquatic life to spread across land, congregate into groups, develop separation and specialization of tasks, the Verd were like any number of other pedantic, pedestrian, and entirely predictable species to civilize and reach out toward the stars.
One more, or fewer, mattered infinitesimally little.
It was boring, yet presented an opportunity to answer intriguing questions. Why did evolution proceed from water to land? Would it be possible to drive evolution from land to water? Would it be possible for a post-civilization species, one that had largely stopped evolving, to undergo drastic evolution again?
Such results could be of far greater interest and importance.
The Ra'u experiment team in charge sent icy comets on collision trajectories with Veril. Verd technology had not yet progressed to a point of being able to detect, let alone defend against, such collisions. The results were devastating. The regular increase of large volumes of ice meant an overall increase in planetary surface water. Long term atmospheric blotting lead to altered weather patterns and large scale die-offs of plant life and disrupted ecologies. 86% of the planetary surface came to be covered in water. In the aftermath, the Verd were no more, and the Soven emerged.
The Soven resemble a neckless cross between an owl and a frog. Their stumpy heads are dominated by large, expressive eyes, and is capable of turning nearly 180 degrees. They have powerful legs and slightly webbed feet, suitable for jumping and swimming. Their slightly over-long arms end in 3 primary digits and 2 opposable thumbs. their body is covered in a short, coarse fur that is oiled, much like a penguin. They have tufted ears sensitive to pressure changes; fine hearing, and instinctively orient and navigate themselves by reference to magnetic fields. They have a short broad beak suitable for omnivorous diet and shellfish. The beak is sharp, but not keratinous; it is a protusion of exposed skull, making cold temperatures (such as is now found through much of Veril), foraging, and even eating (to an extent) painful.
Early Soven civilization is built on the ruins of Verd society, and focused on escaping the hellish life of their planet. Upon ascent to the galactic stage, the Soven discovered the circumstances of their development. They also learned that the Milieu had discovered the Ra'u plans regarding Veril, but rather than intervene, had becomed mired in inaction due to risk-benefit assessment studies, political maneuvaring, and policy and jurisdiction debates. The Soven hate all because no one came to their aid - those who did not take part had sat idle when they could have stopped the planetary calamity. They do not trust any alien species - they are all complicit, or would be, or mean to do some other harm. Since ascending to space, the Soven have spent their time and resources on developing weapons and technology to wipe out all other species; they consider this the only way their species will be safe again.
They have thus far been spectacularly unsuccessful, which has only fueled their hatred and paranoia. Most other species avoid Soven space, a rather small sphere of influence itself, either on principle so as not to aggravate the unfortunates, or else because attacks by Soven spacecraft, while not especially threatening, are annoying and inconvenient. The Ra'u are completely ambivalent to the existence of the Soven, and are content to leave them alone despite constituting a (minor) threat within Nihil space.
There are some who contend that the Soven crisis constituted an experiment, on a wider scale, to see what the Milieu would do when their values were threatened. Rather than wipe out the Soven, which the Ra'u could manage easily, the continued existence of the Soven serves as a subtle insult to the Milieu, a statement of the Milieu's true nature.
