Bactarans

/bɑktərɔn/

Stats

XP Available at puberty: 135

Attributes: INT -1 PER +1 CHA -1 MAN +1 BOD +2 AGI +1

Body class: B

Included Qualities: Spectroscopic Vision

Physical Overview

Bactarans are humanoid. Their most distinguishing physical feature are the spikes on the top and back of their head. They are slightly larger and stockier than humans, with a hard, angular face.

Blood

Bactarans do not have a single circulatory system. Their cells are fed by five sets of vessels, each going to different body areas, known as Hon-karona vessels, as well as one set that carries a different, more gelatinous fluid, which functions as a backup (Hon-kateka) in case the Hon-karona system fails. Thanks to this system, it is virtually impossible for a Bactaran to bleed to death; a severed arm will drain one system of Hon-karona, but the cells in the rest of the arm will be kept alive by the Hon-kateka fluid until the Hon-karona system clots. Thanks to this system, a Bactaran who is in Overflow from Piercing or Crushing damage will not take any more damage over time.

Regeneration

There is a regenerative growth system that can regrow a severed body part within a few months. Recent medical advances have made it a relatively simple task to reattach severed limbs with as little as certain drugs, a splint, and a needle and thread.

Spectroscopic Vision

The Bactarans also have a unique aspect of vision: tiny biological spectroscopes built in to their eyes allow them to recognize substances with extreme accuracy as easily as humans recognize colors.

Head spikes

Bactarans' heads are covered in hard, straight spikes, similar to porcupine quills. These spines also have a fiber optic-like thread running through them and a single-cell eye - allowing to see vague shapes and motion behind them. These spikes do not provide much physical protection, but the additional awareness (combined with their spectroscopic vision) grants them +1 to their PER attribute.

Intelligence

The average Bactaran has an intelligence level slightly below the average human. In terms of their technological advancement, this has historically been compensated for by their remarkable spectroscopic eyes - the ability to discern not just colors but the spectra of elements makes the world easier to natively understand, and tends to prevent fewer scientific 'wrong guesses', especially in fields like chemistry. Their scientific progress has tended towards stagnation as a field advances beyond what the eyes can see - which is largely how Bactarans have advanced space travel and weapons technologies so much faster than their computer technology.

Behavioral

A Bactaran's instinctive behavior is possibly best understood by observing their evolutionary history. There is a closely related species called the Bactoca which is a scavenger with an unusual trait: it emits a pheremone that causes its food animal to start infighting; in fact, it triggers their mating season. When the dust settles, one or more of them is usually dead, and the Bactoca eats the corpse. This is notable because, often, Bactarans use similar tactics on their enemies. They evolved a strong sense of social intelligence and an understanding of motives and what could be used to turn one against another. Nowhere is this trait more evident than when they occupied Earth, quickly learning command of human politics and turning one group against another.

Culture

Houses and Enclaves

Bactaran society is feudal, with the most powerful organizations being the many Houses. A Bactaran House lives in an enclave be composed of a family, any service staff it empoys or contracts, traders, and a number of wards and diplomats from other Houses. Enclaves range in size from small farms consisting of a single nuclear family, to huge walled fortresses with thousands of members inside. All enclaves are surrounded by walls - the tallest are hundreds of feet high, while small enclaves often build walls small enough to step over, which merely serve to mark territory.

Walls

Walls carry enormous symbolic value in Bactaran culture. A family without shelter will often choose to build a makeshift wall before even starting on the house. Crossing a wall uninvited is a grave offense to Bactarans, and if a Bactaran does not have a wall, most other Bactarans consider him to be "fair game". On the other hand, most Bactarans respect the boundary that a wall represents, and will fight to prevent third parties from violating the wall, even if the wall is only knee high. When venturing outside one's own walled enclave, a Bactaran's clothing is considered his "wall", and many Bactaran clothing styles are designed to convey this idea.

Cities

In addition to the countless House enclaves, the moon is dotted by a number of larger cities, which are explicitly not walled off and are considered open to all. These cities are often buit around or near the enclave of the house which built the city. The first precursors to cities were relatively small public spaces built adjacent to but outside an enclave wall - a way of offering shelter and space to outsiders but not promising protection. Eventually, the largest houses began to build large, ostentatious public spaces; as these space were used not merely for shelter, but for commerce as well, they soon began to grow of their own accord, into the cities they are now.

Cities often contain within them smaller areas which are walled off, often secondary enclaves for families which do business in these cities but do not live there.

Houses

Though there are hundreds of Bactaran houses, each with its own culture and personality, the most prominent houses are listed below.

Houses, especially the large ones, exchange wards on a regular basis - children sent between Houses to ensure peaceful relationships and discourage violence. In practice, however, wards tend to conduct subterfuge within the houses they were sent to - sometimes planned, sometimes not - and in recent years, the practice has become distrusted and fallen from use. The new means for peace: economic interdependence.

Like many cultures, Bactaran houses mark their territory with flags. A normal Bactaran flag is vertically oriented, and for houses whose native language is in the Prime language family, it is tradition to built the design of the flag around the letter of the first syllable of the house.

The House of Moti

Several generations ago, a brutal dictator named Korzof dominated much of the planet. One of his projects, spanning his long career, was the transformation of a subservient House of his into a subspecies of purebred fighters. After two generations of selective breeding, the House of Moti, formerly insignificant, because the instrument by which Korzof would achieve his domination. For the third generation, he instructed the house to breed as many children as they possibly could, granting them the resources needed to raise and train the children in exchange for their serving in his army.

The Korzof-Moti were strong warriors, and coupled with the element of surprise (having come from such an unassuming House), swept the planet. In just three generations they had effectively become a subspecies of Bactarans, highly distinctive from the standard mold. Their improved strength and agility are accompanied by increased aggression. Generations after Korzof's death, it is members of the Korzof-Moti which occupy Earth, causing so much destruction there.

The House of Punomah

This wealthy house has a large amount of valuable land, and in terms of day to day life on Bactara, dominates the economy. Punomah exports a significant percentage of food, common products, materials, and weapons used throughout Bactaran society.

The House of Martoki

The House of Martoki is best known as the most devoutly religious house on Bactara. Bactara is a moon that is tidally locked to its planet, a gas giant called Martok; the House of Martoki's territory is directly beneath Martok, and the gas giant hangs in the sky directly overhead. Martok is worshipped as a deity by many houses, and Martoki is chief among them, taking great pride in its religious position.

The House of Tormə

This small house has a longstanding territorial dispute with Moti, which came to a head after the Moti's territory was forcibly taken from them following Korzof's reign. Part of the territory that was taken was then found to contain ancient ruins - the BTD manufacturing device that would change the course of history of the Orion Arm. Moti tried in vain to reclaim the device, and when that failed, launched what seemed to be a sabotage attempt, but turned out to actually be cover to steal several BTD's, which it would go on to use for the invasion and occupation of Earth.

The House of Barohti

This house is dominant in the land on the leading edge of the Bactara moon, allowing it easy access to space travel. As a result, this house has a dominant position in space travel within the Bacto system. Other houses frequently contract with them to launch their own payloads.

Language

The Bactaran society is old, and fragmented. The language World of Bactara is split into three major Families: Prime, Kingdom, and Primitive. The Prime family is the one that will interact with space travelers most of the time; it is far more used than the others, and used by nearly all Bactarans who travel in space. The other families fall further and further out of use over the generations until, by the 23rd century, only Prime remains. The Prime family contains three major languages: Kortona (used by Korzof and by extension the Moti house, as well as their rival house Tormə), Martoki (associated with the more religious houses), and Klinoto (most common among the rich, spacefaring houses such as Barohti and Punomah). Every House, even the smaller ones, has its own dialect of the language it uses.

The written alphabet of the Prime language family is based on syllables, which consist of a consonant followed by a vowel sound. The consonant is represented by the outside of the character, while the symbols inside the character represent the vowel sound.