[b]Setting Information[/b]



Korit – The settlement of the planet of Korit began almost two thousand years ago, and was among the first serious attempts at terraforming. Strictly speaking, it was habitable in its original state, but not to any known intelligent species. It was a largely frozen world across the vast majority of its surface, with temperatures too low to be survivable outside of environment-controlled habitats or suits. The planet itself was geologically active, however. Deep-sea vents could be found under the frozen surface of its oceans, as well as numerous geothermal springs on the surface. Extremophile lifeforms could thrive in such regions, though the world was otherwise a frozen wasteland. Atmospheric oxygen was present at a concentration which was not breathable, but close enough that modifying the atmosphere was considered feasible, long-term. 

Following a proposed plan by an organization of well-respected Tekeri planetary scientists, the initial terraforming efforts were picked up in partnership with a Tekeri mining company. The planet was rich with easily-accessible mineral wealth, and the mining operations could both fuel and fund the terraforming process, as the first step to make the world more livable was to raise its average temperature. As such, the first settlers largely worked the mining operation, living in artificial habitats. The mining technology used was designed to maximize carbon dioxide output to begin raising the proportions of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. The operation proved especially profitable, and so over decades was able to expand significantly across the planet’s surface. Part of the profits funded facilities which could emit more efficient greenhouse gasses, and accelerate the slow warming of the planet. 

Korit was at the far fringes of Tekeri territory and was still far from livable, but the rapidly-growing demand for labor still attracted those willing to live on the frontier. A significant portion of these laborers ended up being war refugees from a conflict that had sprung up between the Tekeri and one of their neighbors. It was, for the company, a boon that further accelerated their operations...for a time. The war went sour for the Tekeri, and the supply of cheap, petroleum-based fuels they had been importing was interrupted. Korit itself was never attacked, but many of the markets they shipped to ended up blockaded. The operation did not cease, but its profitability diminished considerably. By the time the war came to its end, the company was close to insolvent. Ordinarily, the end of the war might have allowed them to recover by resuming operations, but the Tekeri had taken enough losses in the war that they were no longer able to provide any measure of security or other support for the colony. With no governments support, the company had little choice but to pull out of the endeavor. 

Unfortunately for the colonists, the company also did not have the means to evacuate the many, many workers that now inhabited a still-unlivable world, and it was but one crisis of many the Tekeri government was being forced to contend with. Many of those with the means left to return to civilization, but many, many more were trapped. Well-founded panic spread that the colonists would be overrun by pirates and other outlaws, conquered by the very enemy the Tekeri had fought, or perish as their habitats eventually failed. However, none of those catastrophes came to pass. In the absence of the company, the de facto leader of the colony, Administrator Setia, began to make deals of her own. A savvy negotiator herself, she managed to bargain with the pirates who would have looted their facilities to instead provide protection, and she cut a deal with a Human world for fuel to be able to resume their mining operations. Her deal locked them into trading exclusively with a single Human world at what was, for them, a rather mediocre price for seventy years, and the lion’s share of those already-diminished profits had to go to paying off the outlaws for protection, but it allowed their mines to once again open. It allowed their colony to avert disaster, and to keep pushing on. The colonists restructured their administration into a proper government, and Setia was elected as their first governor in a landslide. 

For a lifetime, the colony was barely scraping by, though that also meant they attracted little attention from outside forces, even if they were essentially funding piracy on the fringes of society for decades. Over time, however, they were able to steadily re-open mines that had been shut down during the war. They were locked into low sale prices for what they produced, but their infrastructure could recover. Eventually, the contracts the pirates were offered for defense became more profitable and less risky than piracy, so what were once outlaws transitioned into a defense force. When their exclusivity contract ended and they could once again trade with different worlds at market price, their growth returned to pre-war rates. 

Without the support of the Tekeri government, Korit had to see to its own immigration. To grow its labor force, they offered citizenship to any who could come work. No background checks, no questions asked, and any who came could be essentially guaranteed employment. The world became a haven for the desperate, for criminals on the run, and for the persecuted. They cared little for the species or cultures from which they immigrated, only that they did not cause enough trouble to harm business. With such loose restriction and regulation, and being so far out in the frontier, the culture of those who came to inhabit the planet eventually shifted to fiercely value independence. 

For the planet itself, centuries after centuries of continuous effort did finally end up achieving the desired result. Greenhouse gasses were like a blanket over the formerly frozen world, raising its average temperatures enough to become habitable, then finally comfortable for its inhabitants. It was once the frozen oceans had melted that the next phase of terraforming could truly begin. Although no longer under Tekeri control, the organizations that now claimed the world still had a strong incentive to follow through on the original plans. Genetically-engineered phytoplankton species were seeded into the planet’s oceans to maximize oxygen production. At the same time, many types of plant life and other organisms were introduced wherever they would grow. In most places, that was moss-like plants and lichen, while around settlements, they created and fertilized topsoil artificially to be able to grow more complex plant life. The atmosphere was still not naturally breathable to most, but the planet was rapidly becoming greener and greener. Environment suits were no longer needed to walk on the surface, and since an efficient breathing apparatus could extract and concentrate enough oxygen from the atmosphere that oxygen tanks were not required, settlements no longer needed to be entirely hermetically sealed. 

[hr]

Present day, Korit’s biosphere is fully-habitable. Its flora and fauna was sourced a number of worlds, and the selection was tailored to be ideal to exist alongside civilization. Given the world’s origins, it is little surprise that so much political power is now held by what most of the galaxy would consider to be a criminal enterprise. The planet is not “lawless”, per ce, but it is as close as one can be without complete anarchy. There is little to no regulation on most forms of business, which has made it a useful place for foreign governments to unofficially sponsor business or research that would not be publicly accepted on their own worlds. Korit is a planet known to be a beautiful tourist destination with idyllic resorts in hand-crafted natural environments, which masks rampant crime and exploitation by corporate entities. All the while, the independent streak of its natives is still strong to this day.

Intelligent Species: 

[hider=Tekeri]A flightless bird-like species. They are tall in stature, and most often have deep black feathers. They have vicious, serrated beaks and two pairs of eyes, one just above and behind the other (similar to [url=https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/images/5/51/Avian_slender_02.png]this[/url]). The Tekeri are a predator species and were originally pack hunters. They have powerful bodies granting them considerable strength and, in combination with their relatively lightweight frame, equally considerable speed, at the cost of being inherently more fragile than other creatures of their size. 

More unique than their physical attributes is a particular mental trait of the Tekeri. Their minds are “wired” particularly efficiently towards analyzing and understanding the social and emotional cues of other creatures. This, of course, includes one another, allowing them to quickly and accurately understand the emotional state of other Tekeri. However, their hyperempathy is sophisticated enough to even apply to non-Tekeri. Obviously, their ability to interpret the cues of other species is not immediate, but they are capable of learning to understand their cues as innately as if they were Tekeri, so as long as their senses are capable of perceiving them. On their home planet, they were capable of domesticating a remarkable number of animal species as a result, and have continued to do so as their civilization has expanded into the stars. Despite a physical appearance which some might find intimidating, their ability to both understand other species and express themselves in ways that can be mutually understood eliminated a good deal of the friction of interspecies relations for them. They are more prone to pursue negotiation and diplomacy to address problems in order to best utilize the advantages they possess. 

Occasionally, a Tekeri will hatch with a mutation to their hyperempathy. Rather than focusing their mental capabilities towards analyzing social cues, the section of their brain dedicated to that task becomes more generalized to analyze sensory input, as well as more abstract concepts. These minds absorb new information quickly, and are exceptionally creative. Historical figures suspected to have this mutation have stood out as scientists, inventors, artists, strategists, and so on, though they often find it more difficult to fit in to their society. Their comparative difficulty in understanding the cues of other Tekeri makes socialization more difficult for them, and they do not tend to behave as their peers would expect. Depending on cultures and time periods, these mutant Tekeris have experienced treatment ranging from pity, to ostracism, or worse. The most prevalent, modern Tekeri cultures tend to be more accepting and value their capabilities, but that does not help them to overcome their natural challenges to fitting in with normal Tekeri. 

Most Tekeri cultures which have survived to modern day hold a uniquely strong reverence for nature, from the flora and fauna of a planet, to the natural order of the universe itself. A prominent way of life holds in reverence nature spirits, and seeks to encourage a “good life” by bringing one in tune with their own true nature. It is not an organized religion and there is no church to spread its tenets, but is nevertheless a spiritual belief system that has survived. Many Tekeri no longer believe in the supernatural, but nevertheless still strongly respect nature and hold to elements of the way of life that their beliefs imparted onto their culture over millennia. 

As their technology advanced, some Tekeri cultures did see contradictions between embracing the natural order versus embracing their new creations, with some taking a rather rigid stance against allowing technology to interfere with a way of life living in nature. Others, however, adapted their beliefs to their new capabilities, and ultimately, those who embraced technology could easily out-compete those who did not. Nevertheless, they never completely eschewed nature in almost any aspect of their way of life. A Tekeri city might become a part of a forest, for instance, rather than replacing it. They might cut only what is absolutely necessary, while leaving the rest of the forest standing among their buildings. Particularly with modern technology, they prefer their buildings be connected high up, rather than at ground level, so that the ground can remain unpaved and in its natural state. Their settlements are organized not to keep out the wilds, but to co-exist within them. Even their starships, at least the habitation modules, will often be home to all manner of gardens and free-roaming animals. The halls might give more of an impression of walking through a log cabin than an advanced spacefaring vessel, even if it is more of an artificial facade. 
[/hider]

[hider=Utaysi]Strictly speaking, the Utaysi are not a “species”, at least not anymore. The original Utaysi were a reptilian species that, ultimately, failed to overcome one of the great hurdles to becoming  a truly spacefaring species. A challenge that they, like several other species, faced in their development was a side effect of their widespread industrialization, as their carbon emissions produced a runaway greenhouse effect which steadily warmed their planet. While the problem was identified early, a decisive solution was much more difficult for them to implement. Political and religious opposition slowed support for impactful research until it was far too late to halt it, and a lack of cooperation between nations sabotaged efforts to reverse the damage before they could even get off the ground. As environmental pressures worsened, many nations abandoned the lofty goal of saving the planet in favor of the much more “practical” notion of surviving the changes. Some nations had certain resources or other advantages that might have made it possible, but others were not going to simply accept eradication. Alliances were forged, rivalries ignited, and eventually wars were fought over vital resources. Regardless of who won, their hope of a future had been one of the first casualties. 

Amid the many disparate reactions their people had to the worsening cataclysm, there were some who accepted that there would be neither escape nor survival, but still found purpose to preservation. Spread out among remote corners of their world, various organizations found enough support to create bunkers, buried, hidden, and insulated from the chaos outside, that could preserve something that might be of use to whoever might survive. Some became time capsules for seeds and genetic material to try and save some of their world’s rapidly dying species. Some sought to preserve knowledge: the histories and cultures of an entire species. And in one corner of their dying world, one group managed to find a way to preserve a legacy. 

The project had originated as an effort to use artificial intelligence to find some solution to heal their climate. It was a project that spanned over half a century of concentrated, [i]desperate[/i] research by some of their world’s top minds in AI development, not to mention the experts in other scientific fields who worked with them to try and produce real solutions. Some progress was made, enough to secure investment and resources for them. More than once, they found answers that [i]would[/i] have worked had they been implemented just a few decades sooner. As the world changed around them, and the hope for survival diminished, however, their priorities shifted. The core research team revived a proposal that had been made decades earlier to create AI that could survive a world their civilization could not, in the hopes that they could nurture a new civilizations from the survivors centuries, or even millennia down the line. Their facility had been built to last, and with the right modifications, could be made self-sufficient under AI caretakers. Naturally, the proposal did not gain as much support as their earlier efforts, but it gained enough from the right people. 

After failing to provide a solution to their climate crisis, the earlier, more traditional AIs had been appropriated and repurposed for other tasks, but they all had decades of research and advancement behind them to push a new path forward. What they wanted was not something purely analytical, but something that could nurture a new civilization from the ashes of what was left behind. It needed to be able to understand and empathize with the survivors to help guide their path forward. They needed to create something closer to life itself. The more they worked as the years passed, the more they refined and iterated, the more that aspect of their goal came front and center. Their team redefined how they thought about artificial life, especially as their prospects for their own species became more and more dismal. The condition of their planet’s environment degraded more quickly and more severely than they had anticipated. For their future, they began to contend with the possibility that there would be no survivors left to guide. That reality is what gave rise to their project’s final iteration. 

The breakthrough came from the project lead,  Marae Ano. She was able to perfect a process that could only be described as a programming miracle to create what was essentially an artificial reconstruction of the Utaysi mind. An empty slate, a mind without memories or experience, but a mind nonetheless. The team used the process to create more, though they could not make too many. They were not like traditional AI and could not simply have information and skills installed. They had to be taught, their memories made and skills learned through experience. They needed to be raised as one would raise children, and while shorter than a normal childhood, it still took them years. 

In the end, the project’s scientists had spent the majority of their adult lives working towards their species’ survival, and one-by-one, every potential answer they had found had faded away into a sea of “not enough” and “too late”. Yet, at the end of these long careers, they had not been left with nothing. Their facility had long since lost contact with the outside world. What had once been once-in-a-lifetime natural disasters were now simply the weather above ground. Every environment from the sea to the poles had been disrupted beyond recognition, and it had been years since they had even picked up a signal on their radio, until they finally shut it off for good. Their world had been beyond saving, but they could still look upon their legacy behind mechanical eyes. The facility was equipped with everything their creations would need to survive this mass extinction, and to go out and claim the world that would follow. They forged bodies for themselves, modeled after their creators, and were ready to wait out a thousand-year storm. The research team, for their lifetime of toil and perseverance, became the last of their species to be granted a peaceful retirement. They lived the twilight years of their lives in well-earned rest, being cared for by their creations. Marae survived the longest, and though she spent years as the last living Utaysi, her final words were that she did not die alone.

For the AI, the extinction of the Utaysi had been an inevitability they had been expecting for decades, yet they still felt hardly prepared for the emotional burden it placed upon them. Some still held out hope that there might be survivors out somewhere in their world, even though their projections placed it as a slim hope. There had certainly been efforts elsewhere in the world to create shelters to outlast the mass extinction, and there was always the possibility that they had accomplished breakthroughs to succeed in that effort. If not, then they would be their world’s only sapient survivors. They decided their only choice was to wait, to keep their facility in good repair, and to survive. They had a wealth of scientific and engineering knowledge, as well as where to look for further archives once they surfaced. If the worst came to pass, they knew how to rebuild, and they could carry on the name of the Utaysi. 

[hr]

The wait for a world to heal was a long one, and fortunately for the Utaysi, they had an advantage in hibernation their organic progenitors lacked, so they could avoid the torture of living lifetime after lifetime in an unchanging facility. They were not like traditional AIs that could be limitlessly patient. Those centuries of monotony could have well driven them mad had they been forced to endure it. They desired excitement, exploration, discovery. It was not enough to exist, they needed to [i]live[/i]. They awoke only occasionally for maintenance and to run repairs. A few times, they even had to mount expeditions to the surface for materials, but their facility was equipped to fabricate frames to accomplish whatever tasks they needed. 

Even for all of their mistakes, the Utaysi’s progenitors could not have destroyed their world forever. After a long enough wait, extreme weather became more manageable, and the life that had survived began again to reclaim the world. The Utaysi could handle environments much less pleasant than most organic life, so they were able to begin their explorations even before the world was stable. They followed their plans, laid out by their creators and amended over countless years of observation. They scouted new territory, secured useful resources, constructed new settlements beyond their facility, and expanded their own numbers once the situation permitted. Their priority was to expand patiently and responsibly, but they also sought out the remains of what their creators left behind. Archive facilities they knew about were quick to be search to recover their knowledge and anything else they had preserved. Some hoped to find facilities with still-living members of the original Utaysi species, but it was a slim hope after so much time. They did indeed discover the bunkers of desperate projects that sought to wait out the storm, but none had been able to last nearly long enough. Ultimately, their creators had gone extinct, but they still had a future ahead of them. Their future would be to claim the planet, to heal it, and to eventually explore the universe that lay beyond that world. 

[hr]

As AI, the Utaysi are software, though their programming structure is quite unlike any traditional artificial intelligence. Rather than being made for rapid calculations and analysis, their software architecture much more strongly resembles and organic mind, with a matching capacity for creative thought. Although, detailed analysis of their personality constructs is notoriously difficult, if not impossible. Their programming is almost like a black box that does not allow for observation into its inner functioning, even for the Utaysi themselves. Despite repeated attempts through their history to study the subject, the Utaysi do not understand how their own minds work. Their creation was the result of a breakthrough by the researcher Marae Ano, but the details of that process were either not recorded in the facility’s databanks, or had been intentionally deleted. Given the otherwise high quality of record keeping at the facility, it is generally accepted that the decision not to preserve the secrets of the Utaysi’s creation was an intentional decision by Marae, for reasons at which can only be speculated. Utaysi cannot create new personality constructs from scratch, but rather utilize an advanced genetic algorithm for reproduction, which was also originally created by Marae Ano to interface with their minds. 

A Utaysi can inhabit any computer with sufficient processing power to run its personality construct, but most prefer artificial bodies reminiscent of their original organic creators. Their progenitors were a reptilian species with lean, powerful bodies built to be able to transition seamlessly between quadrupedal and bipedal movement. They had long tails that comprised almost half their length on all-fours and were quite adept climbers. Fundamentally, it is in such bodies where they feel most comfortable, and some have experienced psychological distress from spending too long in machines that are too dissimilar. It is suspected that, since their personality constructs were modeled after their progenitors’ minds, they hold aspects of their instincts in their programming. Although, there is evidence that their constructs were tweaked from those organic origins in some ways to make their psychology more accepting of their artificial nature, as they can still handle transfer between bodies more easily than one would expect from an organic mind. There are even a minority of Utaysi who seem able to adopt drastically different forms without noticeable negative effects. 

By itself, a Utaysi personality construct cannot think considerably faster than most intelligent organic species. They can access an external computer to assist their thought processes for quicker data analysis, though it is not fundamentally different from how an organic can utilize cybernetic implants to the same end. Naturally, however, being software does allow them to link with other electronics more readily, without the need for expensive implants. [/hider]

[hider=Tindrel][/hider]
[hider=Human][/hider]
[hider=Queleun-Vosh][/hider]