Presenting: The Naucine (part 1)

   "Their Council membership is a continuing stain on the Milieu!" howled Wol'arr, his mien indicating moderate anger per com-main's universal emotional context indication.  "The Arr'yoo call upon the noble Naucine to support our petition to censure and revoke Xylanthan membership!" Sincere respect.

   It was, for former ambassador to the Milieu Aperiodic Tesselation, the same drama on a different day.  After three centuries' tenure as the Naucine representative on the Milieu's Coordinating Council, 'Aper' had become quite accustomed to the various cries of outrage, demands, mortal grievances, and false appeals to nobility and enlightenment various exo-species engaged in to achieve their ends.  What had been surprising was that the tedious litany had mysteriously continued, even increased in volume, since his resignation.

  Quite perplexing.

  Fortunately, private life had freed him from the constraints of formality and political language - he was free to speak his mind, and had told Wol'arr, on no less than three separate occasions, that the CHO-main Canidus was an overdramatic lout.  The fourth was fast approaching.

  It was all a game, no less so than the game Seq they had gathered for, and one that Aper could not seem to escape from.  "I'm afraid the naucine position on the subject of Xylanthan membership is unchanged."  Mild regret, ambivalence.  "They are the natural, evolutionary result of a unique conflux of circumstances.  While we find the duplicitous circumstances surrounding their arrangement with the CHO-main Locus of their world, it cannot be ignored that they chose nnot to obliterate their aggressors."  Minor apology.

  He led his hirsute guest towards the game room.  Aper was playing host to officials and liasions for the Arr'yoo, Ixion, and the Forged.  It was only natural that Wol'arr would attempt to canvass for support; indeed it was almost required.  The Arr'yoo were not yet advanced enough to be seriously considered for a council seat without sponsorship; even with sponsorship, it would be an uphill battle.  They had only recently begun terraforming efforts to colonize their system, to make use of the gravitational intra-system transport network they were fortunate enough to have, to overturn an economic system premised on scarcity by mining asteroids for resources.  They were generally considered too technologically undeveloped for sponsorship or mentoring; yet first contact had been made in an effort to stave off Nihil incursions.

  However, Wol'arr's entreaty was doomed to failure from the outset.  The Ixion were too busy as the literal workhorse of the Milieu to take on mentoring a pre-interstellar species or to take on more conflict.  The Forged were still coming to terms with their comparatively recent and sudden ascension into galactic civilization.  The Naucine were generally loathe to interfere at any level, and despite the friendship Aper shared with Wol'arr, the Naucine had been opposed to contact in the absence of any evidence of an impending Nihil experiment.

  "Moreover, they are the sovereign power of their world, by their own means.  Whatever else may be true, this we must respect, or else there is no cause to respect the authority of any species anywhere, let alone that of the Milieu."  This they all knew; it had been the final argument that sealed Xylanthan membership.  There was no justification in opposing the Nihil Cooperative if the Ascendant Milieu did the same, whatever their good intentions may be.

  "Forgive my outburst; it is a frustrating situation," Wol'arr growled.

  "Overdramatic lout."

  Wol'arr laughed heartily as he did every time.  Despite the circumstances, the Arr'yoo had a vivaciousness of spirit that naucine admired and appreciated.  He had also been a quick study at Seq, though predictable at times.  The game room was one of the perks of private life; besides having a private vessel at his disposal, he maintained spacious quarters at the Milieu Core, including a large anti-grav room for Seq, and no shortage of interesting players.

  Seq had surprisingly become a cultural export of the Naucine.  In its original incarnation, Seq was a board game, originally played on an ocean floor or convenient coral reef, and later on moulded sand and dirt.  Bits of bone, shell, teeth, scales, twigs, feathers, and so forth served as pieces, generally representing the creatures they came from.  The game play represented interactions between ecosystems and evolution as animals competed for territory, resources, and survival.  It was a game they did not play to win, but one in which both players strove to achieve elegance and beauty in their play.

  It was a runaway hit on the galactic stage.  Once crews aboard ships had picked up how to play, the game had spread like wildfire.  Among the CHO-main Varietas especially Seq enjoyed wild popularity, leading to public game spaces and portable technology for holographically rendering terrain and pieces.  And then slowly, the game changed.

  In CHO-main hands (paws, grippers, etc.) new pieces were introduced.  Rather than animals, they were various sentients, military and civilian units that interacted.  No longer did gameplay represent ecologies and evolution, but various racial civilizations and their interactions and development.

  The Naucine were honored beyond belief.  For their game of evolution to itself evolve into something greater through contact with others was a purity of form like unto art.  Seq saw renewed interest among the Naucine as new pieces, sets, and stages were available.  At its highest levels, Seq represented differing ideologies engaging in discourse and debate.

  The game space projected a variety of biomes - although his game space was capable of nanot construction, he had employed holographic representations out of respect for the Forged liasion - from verdant forests, complete with simulated wildlife, to unforgiving tundra.

  Aper bowed to his guests who were already seated.  "Welcome friends."  Joy, gratitude.  "I present to you, Wol'arr, representative of the Arr'yoo."  He gestured around the room, first to the quadruped centauroid, "Krellin, officer of the Ix embassy," then to the shiny, ambiguous CHO-main, "Teodore, junior ambassador of the Forged," and finally to another naucine, "Concentric Tangents, my... nephew I suppose."  Greetings were exchanged as the holographic displays to select pieces appeared before each player.  "Conc was hatched several generations after me from the same creche.  We have hopes that he will take up the position of ambassador one day," Aper explained conversationally.  His conversation with Wol'arr had given him inspiration for this round of Seq; his selection was entirely of an identical type.

  "If you have any discretion in the matter Conc," Krellin's bass rumbled, "I suggest joining the explorer's corps.  More interesting sights, fewer repeated complaints."  They all chuckled.

  Teodore's ambiguous frame pulsed amorphously as he moved his arm, making his decisions quickly and decisively.  "Sometimes the complaints are interesting in their own right though," he offered.

  Aper glanced at his nephew with one of his lateral eyes.  Conc had gestured his good natured amusement, but seemed deeply engaged in making his selections, considering units from numerous and varied sets.  "However I may best serve the people," had been his demurred reply as he finished his selection.

Presenting the Xylanth

Dlain ran.  In his thirty-some years of life, he could not recall ever exerting himself so hard.  It was an odd thought to have cross his oxygen-starved mind.  Is this my life flashing before me?  It was getting harder to see, harder to avoid the thick roots that meandered across the forest floor, harder to pick a path around the large trees that seemed to unaccountably spring up in front of him.  It was getting harder to hear too; between the sound of his labored breathing and the staccato pulse of his heat beat, Dlain was barely aware of Nelston, somewhere in the murky fringe of his periphery, madly scrambling for his life as well.

Dlain's entire being burned with agony; his muscles ached and threatened to tear apart under the strain to run faster and faster.  For the past fifteen years, he'd worked in the ore mines; dangerous, back-breaking labor day in and day out.  He was young, strong, and fit, due to a combination of xylanthan chemicals and rigorous labor.  His lungs had never burned for air as they did now.  For fifteen years he'd been a proper, obedient, dirt-shoveling, Darmok-fearing slave to the meat-fucking plants.  Then he'd met Nelston.  And now he was running for his life.

Dlain twisted, pushed out with his arm at the last moment to avoid colliding with a tree, nearly fell anyway, and scrambled to keep running.  How long had he been running now?  Had they gotten away? Just how fast could those plants move anyway? He didn't dare stop to look.  The future didn't lay behind him.  He had to keep running after it.

All his life, he'd played by the rules.  He knew his place in the universe and kept his head down; born a slave, he'd live a slave's life, and then he'd die a slave.  His spirit would find rest in Darmok's wide arms; his mortal remains would continue to be a slave, a puppet for some newly sprouted Xylanth.  This was the circle of life as all on Sylv knew it.

Then he'd met Nelston.  An immigrant from Skrom, he'd moved across the border to settle in Farling's fiefdom.  Under Xylanthan rule, the three human kingdoms, their various nobility, and assorted landowners were all irrelevant.  All belonged to the plants, and the humans kept what they had by the graces of the Xylanth.  But there was no mistake that all were subject equally to The Green Law; nobles and lords were slaves too, just better dressed than most.

But the humans did hold onto one thing, one thing even the Puppeteers could not take away except in death: their hatred for one another.  The undying hatred the three kingdoms held for one another had not fallen to the Xylanthan forces and lived on, nurtured by distrust and differences.  It was a hatred that ran deep and and took root like an ancient oak.

So Nelston, a stranger from another land, had not even received what little welcome there remained to give.  He was treated poorly, when he wasn't totally ignored, and would probably have continued to be an outcast had he not met Dlain.  Ever practical, Dlain had decided to give the foreigner a fair shake - and they'd become fast friends.  Not long after, Dlain discovered Nelston was in the business of bootlegging liqour, a contraband substance that had led to his quick exit from his previous home; that, and a misunderstanding concerning the local prefect's daughter.

Nelston was considerably more welcome in town soon after.  It was foul, it was flavorless, and it was illegal under The Green Law, but nothing took the edge off a life of slavery in the mines like hard liquor.  That it constituted a minor rebellion was an additional bonus.  Alcohol was forbidden due to the deleterious effect it had on the condition of a body.  As was nearly always the case under The Green Law the punishment was death.  However, it was usually possible to bribe quisling enforcers to look the other way; love of alcohol and corruption hadn't been forgotten under Xylanthan rule either.

Deep in their cups, Nelston had spun a tale of an island far to the south-east, an island nation of humans untouched by the Xylanthan dominion.  An island where humans still lived free.  Everyone knew of it; no one believed it.  The island did exist, as did the human nation - records of its existence, as well as maps, remained in libraries and archives.  Their ancestors had known of the islanders, but thought it a waste of time to conquer.  But no one truly believed  that the islanders remained, or retained their sovereignty.

It had led to talk of poaching.  Capturing wildlife or seed before the Xylanth did whatever it was that made them healthier and addictive.  To cultivate and grow food so that one day, the children of man might reclaim their sovereign right to personhood - this was the unspoken dream of every human in the three kingdoms.  Poaching  was a capital crime, punishable by summary death and implantation.

And now he ran for his life, Nelston somewhere alongside him, chased by a Xylanthan ranger.  Their attempt at poaching had met with little success all morning; it had been impossible to find game or fruit bearing plants.  They'd finally spotted a rock hopper when Dlain had caught a curious scent in the air: sickly sweet with a hint of fiery spice.

Xylanthan pherotongue.  He'd never learned enough to understand it, didn't have a head for scents, but it'd struck him that something was angry.  In the end, it didn't really matter: they'd been found out, trespassing deep in a forbidden forest, attempting to poach.

They ran.

No amount of talking or bribing would save them; only the fleetness of foot and wit could now.

And without warning, Dlain heard Nelston cry out, and the sound of rough impacts.  The fool had tripped.  That will slow down pursuit, Dlain thought as he kept running.  A moment later though, he was skidding to a stop and scrabbling back towards Nelston, prone on the ground, arm outstretched, calling for help.

"Up fool, up!" Dlain could barely get the words out.  "It'll be on us any mo-"

There was nothing behind them.  No sound of chase, no mysteriously moving foliage.  Only the sound silence marred by heavy breathing.

"Balls of the blood god, I thought I was done for!" Nelston wheezed.  "Do you think we lost it?"

Dlain shook his head, unable to speak.  At long last he looked around - in their mad dash, they'd gone even deeper into the forest, and he had no idea where they were.  More fool me for listening to you and stopping to save you! he cursed in his mind.  But he couldn't smell that distinctive scent of rotten flesh that heralded the presence of a Xylanth.  "We should get out of here," he managed at last.

"Trees thin out a bit over that way," pointed Nelston.  "Might be the edge of the forest.  Could make a run for the nearest town, hide out. What do you think?"

I think it sounds familiar, thought Dlain.  Still, it was their best, only, option at the moment.  He nodded, stood up and helped Nelston to his feet. Their was a vague sense of disquiet in the back of his mind as they walked, trying to regain their strength.  He brushed it off as paranoia; the whole day had been terrible enough to spoil any good luck they now found.

And then they saw the Xylanth in front of them, no more than 20 meters away, at the edge of the wood.  Dlain whirled around as Nelston took another shocked step forwarded.  There were more behind them.  He couldn't tell if their original pursuer was among them; they all looked alike to him.  He cursed his lax guard, even as he sniffed the air.  How did I miss them? How did I miss this overwhelming stench?  All at once, the stench of death and rot hit him, and with it understanding.

He'd been too exhausted.  Starved for air, his body reacted naturally for more air once he had relaxed.  Damnit! I've been breathing through my mouth this whole time! No wonder I couldn't smell anything! He took another breath, nearly retched.  The scent was too overpowering to be caused by a handful of Xylanth.  Had they stumbled upon a vineyard? Were these Xylanth protecting a creche of seedlings, rows of newly implanted growing and feeding on scarecrow-like corpses?

It was too much to process, too overwhelming.  It didn't really matter anyway, as his fate, their fates, calmly strode forward.  A pulse of rapidly shifting scents seemed to swirl about them.  They are discussing something.  Is there still hope? He'd never bothered to learn the Xylanth pherotongue.  Few did.  But many could speak, after fashion, the body - signing language the Xylanth also used, particularly with humans.  Dlain was not such a one.  He resolved to learn as much pherotongue as the local administrator would teach him, and vine language, if he survived.  He took a step back towards Nelston.  Survival was all that mattered now.

"I'm sorry Nelston," he whispered.  "But this is all your fault."  In a single motion, Dlain shook free the knife he'd had on his wrist and stabbed Nelston in the chest.  The knife was heavy, but blunt from use.  Nearly everyone carried one to cut dried meat, fruits and bread, cloth and twine.  He hadn't been sure it would cut Nelston's throat.

The motion had turned Nelston to face Dlain, shock and confusion playing across his face as blood seeped from the wound and his mouth; Dlain had missed the heart and punctured a lung.  It was not the quick death he'd hoped to deal. He stabbed again, aiming at the side of the neck.  "Just die damn you!" he shouted, all the fear and fury he'd felt bursting out at once.  He grabbed Nelston by the shoulder, turned him to face the Xylanth, and kicked him to the ground.  Blood quickly began to pool beneath the twitching body, coloring the ground.  Dlain dropped his knife, dropped to one knee, bowing parallel to the ground with arms outstretched in either direction.  It was the only body sign, the only vine language, he knew.

Submission.

The Xylanth had stopped moving, had watched the curious human drama play out before them, and now seemed to be debating its meaning.  "Please!" Dlain begged.  "It was his idea! He's the one you want! I am loyal, I have seen nothing, done nothing! Please take him and let me go!"  He knew the plants understood the human tongue.  He continued to kneel in submission; he didn't dare look up.

The silence seemed to drag on interminably.  Still, he couldn't risk looking up, risk communicating defiance.  He knew it wouldn't matter anyway; he couldn't read their movements, and there would be nothing else to see.

At long last he heard the lone xylanth in front of him pick up Nelston's corpse, heard it dragging it towards the clearing.  He dropped his head and arms in relief; or rather, would have.  It was then he felt the vines wrapped around his tense being, keeping him in submission.  With a strength he could no believe plants could, he felt himself hauled upright and carried forward.  Fear washed over like a frozen wave, sapping him of energy and resolve.  He couldn't cry, couldn't shout in protest.

He soon found himself beside an empty scarecrow, a metal frame that would support his corpse while a seedling grew, tunneling through his remains and wrapping itself around his bones.  A quisling stood beside it, though he couldn't see Nelston anywhere.  The quisling, one of the humans who worked with the Xylanth, seemed to understand and explained helpfully, "You ruined his body, so they can't use it for a new crop.  Still useful though - makes a great fertilizer for the new thing they are growing."

The quisling glanced at him askance to see if he was listening.  "It's actually quite exciting you know! For what it's worth, you and your friend will be working together.  In a way, as it were."  They were strapping Dlain into the scarecrow; he found he had no energy to resist, was glad that he would be dead soon, before the seed was implanted.  "They're growing some kind of giant vine, bigger than we've seen, one that will reach beyond the sky into the heavens!  Well, they call it 'space'.  That's what the fertilizer is for, some gigantic tree and vine."  The quisling continued amiably, oblivious to Dlan being bent over backward to expose his face and throat to the sky.  "They wanted me to tell you.  You'll be among the first Xylanth to head up there! Imagine that," he said with awe.  "Isn't that exciting?"

Dlain found his view of the sky eclipsed by a dark figure - the xylanth was preparing to implant him! Wait! I'm not dead yet! he tried to shout, found that he couldn't even though his mouth was held open.  He tried to struggle to show that he was alive and found that he couldn't move a muscle. Suddenly he understood - the scarecrow.  A small blade was part of its design and severed the spinal column, ensuring the corpse was dead.

Dlain was dead; he just hadn't died yet.

As the xylanth bent over him, his sense of vision blurred.  He could feel its vine tendrils burrowing deeper and deeper into his throat, felt the seedling latch onto the end of his trachea and begin to send tiny tendrils through his veins and arteries.  The pain was unbearable.  A small, distant part of his mind wondered if his spinal cord had not been fully severed, or if certain nerves still communicated with the portion leading to his brain.

Mostly his mind screamed in pain.

He could feel the tendrils pushing out from behind his eyes, trying to push them free of their sockets.

Death couldn't come quickly enough.

Introducing: The Xylanth

Oops.  Well, in my defense, it's been relatively busy recently between taking on new students, dropping old students, and analyzing new topics/tests for students.  And also, I've been grappling with plot points (or lack, thereof).  But I rejoice! I've made good headway recently!

In fact, I've been writing up the various alien species that will be present (aside: someday it will be interesting to present books as an interactive wiki) in the galaxy; not just alien life, but a species that has risen to civilization and beyond.

It's not as simple as just doodling some crazy looking thing, slapping a name on it, and calling it a day (well, maybe for some).  Life - sentient, civilized, technological and advanced life - raises quite a few problems beyond the immediate chemistry of self assembly.  You wonder what form it takes, and consequently how it perceives and interacts with the world at large.  You wonder why they develop civilization - it's not every top dog species that does so.  On Earth, we frequently point to division of labor and specialization as being advantageous for survival (and thus traits that lead proto-humans to socialize and civilize as being evolutionarily advantaged).  That is not always the case.  In some sense, if you ARE the top dog species, that is a disincentive to gather and form a society; more frequently, it is an underdog species that forms groups, develops into a civilization, and thus becomes top of the pyramid.

Well, I say frequently, but really, all I can talk about is what humans have done.

There are other questions too: development of technology (particularly tools and metalwork), religion, societal rules, interactions with other planetary life, and so forth.  Not all of it is useful or necessary.

Anyway, each of these gives me a firmer understanding of what was initially a nebulous idea for an alien species, and the role it will play.  They're pretty fun to write up too, something of a short story in and of themselves.  Today I present the first: The Xylanth.  (I have written 3 more of some 12 or so)

The Xylanth
Plant Based lifeform | Scavenger
Ascendent Milieu
"The Puppeteer" (Meat Fuckers)

The Xylanth are a curious species of mobile plant.  They are evolved from a carnivorous vine, similar in nature to the Rafflesia; seedlings take root in a corpse (preferentially; a living host animal can serve, but are more apt to kill the seedling, even if weakened; any living host is killed as the seedling matures) which serves as a manipulable, mobile frame for the growing plant as well as a ready source of food.  As the seedling matures, root-like tendrils pierce through the corpse and intertwine with the skeleton, allowing the juvenile to draw nutrients and move about.  By the time the new xylanthan reaches maturity, photosynthesis becomes the primary source of energy; the corpse will have been eaten away and replaced with a twisted mass of plant life.  The outer most vines will harden and change in appearance according to the specific race (varietal) of Xylanth - fire resistant hardwood varietals exist.

The Xylanth do not naturally compete with one another, particularly as they are mobile.  They are capable of moving about to seek sunlight and corpses (even hunting live animals to do so).  However, the same mobility made attaining civilization difficult.

Initially, xylanth grouped to better hunt animals for corpses and to clear away vegetation for unimpeded sunlight.  This naturally encouraged settling.  Additionally, the best source of corpses were battlefields for the wars incessantly fought between the planet's various CHO-main (human) factions.  These corpses became prized for their useful shape, as well as being frequently found with armor and weapons.  Eventually, xylanth that worked together were selected for due to their numerical advantages in defending themselves against the local CHO-mains.

The human nations of Sylv warred against one another incessantly; they became terminally stalled at a medieval-equivalent level of development due to multiple large scale wars, each of which resulted in massive population die-offs, starvation, poverty, and general lawlessness.  The generation of new knowledge was little in demand as laborers, not philosophers and thinkers, were needed.  Progress diminished, then disappeared entirely.  The discovery of Xylanthan "corpse puppets" swiftly led to the first unification of the human nations against a common enemy.  It was also the last.

The Xylanthans won overwhelmingly.

Distrust followed on the heels of defeat; how could plants defeat the combined might of the human nations? The humans burned away large tracts of land, never realizing they were creating fertile new grounds for the Xylanth; every human soldier that fell became a Xylanthan terror.  Soon, hardwood and fire resistant varietals appeared amongst the Xylanth.  All the while, the humans scorched and salted farmlands, scores of peasents and farmers and poor drafted into the armies died, leaving no one and nowhere to grow and harvest crops.  Starvation and plague ran rampant alongside bickering and blame in the aftermath, and on the brink of extinction, still the humans sought to kill one another.

This would not do.  Rather than permit the obliteration of the human race (and thus, such wonderful corpses), the Xylanth mediated a peace, a pseudo-symbiotic relationship with mankind: the human nations pledged to turn over their dead to the Xylanth, to supply metal ores and teach the secrets of metallurgy, and in kind the Xylanth provided the human nations with agricultural goods, livestock, and maintained a peace between the three nations of man.  The food the Xylanth provided was both delicious and nutritious - the humans soon found themselves in better health and living longer than they had before.  But the Xylanthan foodstuffs, grown or husbanded by their techniques, was a shackle to bind mankind forevermore to the Xylanth - laced with addictive chemicals, the humans soon found themselves dependent on the Xylanth for their continued survival.  They could not grow their own food, did not desire such meagre produce as they could manage, and poaching was punishable by death.  The humans led longer, healthy, peaceful lives, and the Xylanth ensured themselves a continued supply of superior corpses.

A symbiotic slavery.

Membership to the Milieu was granted on the grounds that the Xylanth constitued a smbiotic civilization.  They maintained a peace amongst the sentient civilizations of their home world and, not the least, kept what would otherwise be considered a Pandoran species of human firmly under control.    Conveniently ignored was the matter of slavery by chemical addiction on a planetary scale and the role of the symbionts in the Xylanthan life cycle.  In spite of the peace they profess to maintain, the Xylanth care little about the frequent skirmishes that occur along the outer borders; far better to let human nature create long-standing grievances and feuds, the better to prevent humans from ever reuniting under one banner.  Their admittance was awkward then, to say the least, and considered something of debacle in the Milieu's history by various member species, especially CHO-main varieties.

Xylanth "see" in the IR/UV spectrum; the exact organs by which it does so have not been identified, but scholars generally agree that the flowers which sprout from the eye sockets are not eyes, but rather mouths - xylanth communicate primarily via chemical-pheromone signals.  They are also proficient at a form of body-sign communication (Xyll), which is the primary means by which they communicate with humans on Sylv.  They are capable of processing auditory signals, but are incapable of replicating them.  Identifying marks of individuality and gender appear in the IR/UV spectrum, and is thought to play a role in "speaking" Xyll, at least between Xylanth when they choose to do so.  The similarities between Xyll and Commain expedited first contact between the Xylanth and the Milieu.

The humans of Sylv had made a practice of identifying individual xylanth by a description of scent, such as "Droppings which have baked in the sun for two days before breaking open, borne on a breeze."  By some irony, Xylanthan names take the form of descriptive scents and are translated thusly.