Symtraya

/ˈsɪmtraɪə/

Stats

XP Available at puberty: 140

Attributes: INT +1 PER +2 BOD +2

Body class: C

Special Attribute: MAG -1

Kennesawu

The Symtraya's biology and life cycle are intrinsically tied to their homeworld of Kennesawu, a binary planet consisting of two worlds in a tight orbit around each other. Kennu, the larger body, is where the ancestors of the Symtraya evolved, as well as the home of another sentient species, the Guigu. It has a rich oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. The smaller world, Sawu, has a thinner but still breathable atmosphere due to its lower gravity. The two world are tidally locked to each other, spinning as a unit in a 52-hour day. Most crucially, both worlds have iron cores and, together, create an incredibly strong magnetic field.

Spaceflight

The Symtraya are a race of spacefaring life forms native to the Kennesawu binary planet system. By taking advantage of the magnetic field of the planet, they are able to achieve space travel and even orbit around the binary planet. To facilitate this, they are hermetically sealed and pressurized inside. Their primary means of movement is a magnetically charged organ known as a proshu, which "pushes" against the magnetic field of the planet. This allows them to accelerate in the vacuum of space without expending huge amounts of propellant or reaction mass, with the caveat being that they can only move around a planet with a strong magnetic field, like Kennesawu.

While impressive, this organ does not provide enough lift to fully counteract the pull of the gravity on Kennu, at least not for most Symtraya. (The smaller world, with its lower gravity, is much easier to lift off from.) The amount of thrust is not a critical issue when in orbit, but launching to orbit requires some assistance. This comes from two sources. First, the Symtraya have wings which, when extended, provide lift when at speed; they do not flap like a bird's wings, only 'glide', so they tend to launch off of mountains and cliffs to get started - once gliding, they can use their proshu to build up enough speed to climb. Once this speed is built up, the combined lift from gliding and proshu is enough to keep them aloft, as long as they maintain their speed.

The other assistance in getting to orbit comes from the smaller body, Sawu. By launching from a particular location on the surface of Kennu, the Symtraya use their momentum to reach an area of lower gravity between the two bodies. Once there, the low thrust of the magnetic drive matters less, and the Symtraya can easily achieve orbit around either body.

Physiology

The Symtraya's physiology is noteworthy for its capabilities as a natural, organic spacecraft. Beyond simply being capable of spaceflight, a Symtraya's body is also capable of the act of reentry. The skin on its underside and nose forms a tough, smooth carapace with strong heat dissipation capabilities. The Symtraya use a zig-zag flight pattern during the approach (much like the pattern used by NASA's Space Shuttle) to spread out the deceleration (and the accompanying reentry heat) as much as possible on approach. The Symtraya's wings can extend and contract repeatedly at different points in the reentry process to provide more control. Finally, the proshu can provide its own deceleration which does not significantly heat the carapace. With all these techniques, the Symtraya are able to safely descend from orbit to Kennu's surface.

Symtraya have a mouth with a scoop-shaped chin. Their primary food source is a tree which is relatively easily scooped up along with its root system; the roots, ignored by the smaller fauna that eat the leaves of the trees, are the main nutrient source for the Symtraya. The digestive tract efficiently separates dirt and rocks from the nutritious parts without sending it all the way through the longer digestive process, saving them from having to carry around heavy, useless rocks in their gut.

Lifestyle

The Symtraya require two main types of sustenance: relatively standard energy-bearing and life-building carbon-based foodstuffs, and the considerably rarer minerals - especially monazite ore - required to grow the proshu. Monazite is found in small quantities on Kennu, but the most abundant deposits are found on the far side of Sawu. The small, primitive spacefarers from which the Symtraya evolved were able to grow to the enormous size for which they are now known thanks to the abundant monazite dirt. Sawu has only sparse vegetation, however, so they can neither stay on the smaller planet for long, nor grow significantly while there.

Modern Symtraya spend much of their lives in their feeding grounds on Kennu, with breeding and birth taking place on Sawu. Growth takes place in phases, alternating between growing the proshu on Sawu, and growing the rest of the body on Kennu.

Use by the Guigu

The Symtraya have a strained relationship with the Guigu for a number of reasons. In particular, the Guigu have been taking advantage of the Symtraya's space travel abilities in two main ways, neither of which earn any friends among the Symtraya. The Guigu have, for several decades, been harvesting proshu from dead Symtraya - these proshu are hooked into the Guigu's primitive spacecraft and used as their primary engines. As the Guigu's space travel needs increase, simply scavenging the dead is insufficient, and they have taken to actively hunting Symtraya. Taking this a step further, some Guigu have been carving holes in the sides of live Symtraya themselves, living inside the expansive lungs of its body, and enslaving the Symtraya for transport - a Symtraya is considerably more maneuverable than a Guigu vessel powered by the heart of a Symtraya.

With these vessels and enslaved beasts of burden, the Guigu have been pressing more and more into space that was once occupied exclusively by Symtraya. This trend has sparked territorial violence, leading steadily towards an all-out war between the species. The Symtraya are able to use their own proshu much more effectively that the Guigu can, including the ability to use it as an electromagnetic weapon. On the other hand, the Guigu have cannons.

Magnetic Attribute

Symtraya have a special attribute, MAG, which refers to the strength of their proshu. When on or around a planet with a full-strength magnetic field, such as Kennesawu, MAG represents the Symtraya's effective Thrust Ratio. For most Symtraya, this is not enough to fully counteract the pull of Kennu's gravity; a Symtraya can augment their natural MAG attribute by rolling AGI + Athletics (Flying) in atmosphere; the hits are added to their effective MAG rating to determine their total lift. This cannot be done outside of the atmosphere, but by that point they can get by and maneuver successfully with a much lower TR.

Culture

The Symtraya civilization is not technologically advanced. They do not have a large governing body. Instead, their culture is built around nomadic tribes. The tribes move back and forth between the worlds together, each trip staking out a new spot on the world to "graze".

Language

Symtraya communicate by a kind of electromagnetic radio, modulating their proshu field in both frequency and amplitude. Thanks to their wide travel range (the only one which spans planets), Symtraya culture and language is exchanged frequently through the entire species across the Kennesawu system. This puts the Symtraya in the unique position of having a relatively universal species language, Symtrayan, which is its own language Family and World, too. They do travel in nomadic tribes, which each has its own dialect of the language, but these dialects do not diverge much from the main language.