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Founders |
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Homeworld: |
Hallowed, Sector -01, +12, +03 | |||
Ecology: |
Nitrogen-Oxygen-Water (H:E:2:7) | |||
Biology: |
DNA II | |||
Languages: |
Native Founder Tongue, Federation A, C, D | |||
Human Contact: |
3347CE | |||
FTL Status: |
98,310BC -Indigenous gravstar | |||
Current Status: |
Retired founders of the Grand Federation of Races | |||
Environment |
Ideal |
Tolerance |
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Atmosphere: |
.16B O2 | .10-.25B O2; CO2 < .04B | ||
Temperature: |
295K | 275-305K | ||
Gravity: |
0.63G | .15-1.20G | ||
Other: |
Humidity 80% | Humidity 50-100% | ||
The Founders are the race responsible for the establishment of the Grand Federation of Races over Sixty thousands years ago. This small delicate fly race has remained withdrawn for active participation in interstellar society for over thirty thousand years, but remains a powerful, if elusive symbolic elder race across all of Known Space.
The best description of a Founder is as a translucent flying spider-shrimp. The Founders average around thirty kilograms mass, just over a meter in length, and have eight multipurpose manipulator limbs and two complex translucent membrane wings. Their bodies are of soft translucent white segments partially obscuring the workings of an inner organ and skeletal system. Their heads are dominated by a large eating slit, eight eyes, providing visual and infrared range vision, and long feathery sensory feelers along the ventral jaw.
The Founders are true hermaphrodites, capable of sexual or self-initiated reproduction and produce a single live 1 kilogram young after a short gestation. Founders evolved on a mild, humid fairly low-gravity (.63 standard) world from flying scavengers living in mesa colonies overlooking vast steaming jungles. As empathic beings, the Founders developed a peaceful society based on cooperation and the expansion of knowledge and philosophy. Delicate in mental and physical constitution, the Founders are unable to tolerate macrojump or microjump travel, and do not colonize other worlds, preferring to remain on their homeworld or in scattered artificial habitats, some of which exceed fifty kilometers in length.
Individual advancement in both knowledge and wisdom is important to the Founders, as is sharing that information within their society. Through genetic improvements and advanced technology, the Founder lifespan in nearly indefinite, with some living individuals reputably pre-dating the establishment of the Grand Federation of Races. The Founders believe in the advancement of knowledge and peaceful coexistence between species, traits which led them to establish the Grand Federation, but despite Radical claims to the contrary, do not appear to have any defined views of a post-corporate existence or of a path to transcendence.
Founder expansion began with the discovery of gravstar drive and their first crewed interstellar expedition in 98,310BC. In 92,147BC, Founder physicists perfected the worm drive and for the next thirty thousand years, the Founders expanded their scientific travels, building far-flung habitats and established tenuous contact with the Sagittarian civilization. Founder travel cumulated in one or possible two expeditions to the Galactic Core, traveling up the Orion Arm. The Founders apparently encountered both friendly and hostile alien civilizations along this route and eventually abandoned further travels to the Core.
During their explorations, the Founders developed deeper diplomatic and cultural relations with other starfaring races, notably the Dantum, Un’aa’gram, Eenikiti and Teechiri. The culmination of this was the signing of the Federation Treaty at the commerce world of Focus in 59,489BC, and for the next thirty thousand years, the Founders acted as advisors, coaches and final arbitrators of disputes between Federation races. Eventually, the Founders decreased their involvement in the affairs of the maturing interracial Federation and devoted more time to their own projects and quests for knowledge. The Founders withdrew from active participation in Grand Federation policy in 30,384BC, retaining only observer status on Focus.
The Founders tolerated the Radical shift of the Federation capital to Hallowed, and allowed races to consult and learn from them in shrines and temples set up to minimize interference with Founders civilization and the native ecosphere. They only intervened in the violence of the First Consolidation War, and besides enforcing peace within their own system and near their habitats, allowed the races of the Grand Federation to determine their own future. After the Reformation, they were satisfied with their more remote status, and allowed the Vandar to act as their agents in most external matters, meeting only official delegations themselves.
After 15,000BC, most of the Founder habitats moved and hid in secluded locations within Grand Federation space, and they let the Vandar strictly control the number of pilgrims and visitors to Hallowed. The Founders supported the integration drive of the Heshar, but made no moves to defend them during the War of Liberation. They likewise did not interfere during the wars with the Empire of Humanity, nor did they provide aid as the Mech Plague spread, from which they seemed to have suffered only minimal effects.
The Founders have maintained a high Worm/Stasis culture for nearly a hundred thousand years, throughout the periods of wars, disintegration and Plague. Official government delegations are still occasionally welcome to Hallowed and allowed to meet with Founder representatives. The Founder race is thought to number over a hundred million on Hallowed, with possibly billions living in what are believed to be thousands of hidden habitats in this region of the Orion Arm.
The Founders are thought to cooperate with remanent Heshar, though the nature of that cooperation remains speculative.
All pages and images ©1999 - 2006
by Geir Lanesskog, All Right Reserved
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