Getting the mob to back off was exactly what Senjen had been trying to do. It was the point of intimidating them: to protect the ship and avoid unnecessary trouble. Still, he had to make an effort to avoid acting surprised about the fact it actually worked. He was clever, in his own humble opinion, but he couldn’t let anyone else know he had been anything less than confident about it. He was supposed to be a professional, after all. This was his job; obviously the mob left without trouble, because that was what his client was paying him for.
Senjen had everything he needed on him, mostly secured in storage compartments in his frame. Dropping down and moving on all-fours, he walked right alongside Light at what was, for him, a leisurely pace. Part of him wondered how fast a QV could actually move out of water, in their gel suits. In truth, he still was not entirely sure he understood how they worked. Those suits alone were probably what made the QV feel the most “alien” to him, out of any of the sapient species out there.
In any case, even just looking around the hangar bay gave a sense of just how much was probably going on in this station. That mob hadn’t even been the only bit of trouble in this room, which might have explained why they thought they might get away with what they had been trying. There was a proper QV ship on one of the other landing pads, which was even stranger than he had imagined to look at up close. Then there was a crowd around another, very expensive-looking ship just across the way. They looked to have prisoners for some reason, even a Utaysi, much to his surprise. Korit had a huge population of locals and visitors alike, so seeing some of his own people was not unusual, but he had not expected to see one in the same hangar bay. Especially not in that kind of a predicament.
“What do you think all that is about, with that expensive ship over there?” Senjen asked Light on a private channel. “Looks to be a crowd, and I’m a bit curious why they have those people locked up. Is that something weird about Korit I should know about?”
’Okay, so being nice didn’t dissuade them, and now there’s more of them.’ Senjen’s thoughts raced as he quickly glanced around the area. He was pretty sure he knew how he could get himself away if the situation went too far sideways, so...he could at least try. ’Yeah, okay, I can try. Intimidate. I prepared for this, just...thought it would be against some thugs or something. Not some random, desperate-looking people. Don’t want to just open up threatening them…’
Senjen stood up much closer to his full height. A Utaysi’s normal posture had them rather hunched over, so while up on his hind legs, he towered over the crowd, which helped for getting a good sight on who might be dangerous. His mind may not have been much like what the organics thought of as a normal AI, but his body was very much still a machine. Even if it wasn’t a combat model, he still had strength and durability. A normal Human had little to no ways to actually harm him unarmed, so the Humans he saw were probably not much of a threat. The Tindrel...maybe. Still, he just had to make them feel that the risk wasn’t worth it. Probably.
He broadcast on an open channel to each of them. “I’ll, uh, have to turn down that offer, sorry. If you look hard enough on this massive station, you’ll probably find a captain poor or bored enough to transport you all for whatever you can pay or trade for. Without trouble, without risk.” Okay, good start. He wasn’t instigating or escalating. He was being reasonable. But now he needed to make them feel they were taking a big risk right now.
“Look, I don’t have anything against any of you, but it’s my job to keep this ship safe. And I will, if I have to. It’s my client’s property, and we have the right to protect it.” He wasn’t being firm enough, he felt; he needed to put something in there to make them worry. That feeling of nothingness on his frame did give him one idea, now that he thought about it. “You all really don’t want to fight over this, trust me. Especially not right here. I mean, I would think you organics would put a bit more respect to how hostile it is out here to you.” This was good, he was onto something here. “Those pressure suits are nice and form-fitting, but I mean, I don’t see any of you wearing anything especially...durable.” If they were just refugees or something, then they probably weren’t wearing combat gear, or suits rated well-enough for hazardous mining or industrial work. Those were expensive, and would probably sell for enough to just buy passage off-world. “Do you know what happens when you all get an open wound exposed to space? Your bodies, they’re naturally pressurized to...whatever one atmosphere is on your homeworld. If you get a cut in your skin or a break in your shell out here, then all those organs and entrails inside, they just get pushed out the hole into space. It’s...horrifying even just to think about. One cut, one little cut, that’s all it would take, for nearly each and every one of you.”
Senjen gave an exaggerated motion of shrugging. “Nothing I have to worry about, of course, but I think you all should at least consider it before doing anything, uh...aggressive, out here.”
’Yeah, that was good.’ Senjen thought to himself, proudly.
The more this Tekeri spoke, the less Senjen was willing to trust any answer he gave. A Utaysi personality matrix was essentially their “mind”: a programming construct that contained all of their thought processes. Most Utaysi frames contained a secondary computer with expanded functions they could use, similar to how organics would sometimes install neural implants, but the personality matrix could not be modified by any normal means. This Tekeri did not seem to understand that, and that called into question the reliability of anything else he claimed. Senjen was genuinely interested in the possibility of finding some alien upgrades, but he felt he needed to find someone more reputable for that conversation.
Senjen was in the midst of trying to find some excuse to get away when Light came to his rescue, albeit unintentionally. Whatever it was the Tindrel were doing seemed to have his client upset, but he would rather deal with that at the moment. “Ah, hold on, I need to handle this.” He remarked to the Tekeri.
Carrying around some crates would have been easy enough for Senjen, but before he could even walk away, there was yet another bit of commotion that found its way onto their landing pad. There was a small group of people that seemed to be taking an interest in them, or their ship. There were different species among them, and there was little else that really stood out about them, except that they looked a bit...rough from his perspective. What they all had in common was the fact that they all seemed to want to leave Korit.
Senjen did not take any sort of aggressive posture towards them. They seemed to be troubled, so he lowered his head a bit and tried to be calm, disarming, especially with how on-edge the customs officials looked to be. He figured it would be better for everyone to try to avoid escalation. “I’m sorry, we’re not heading off-world anytime soon. But hey, this is a really big station. If you can pay like you say, then I’m sure you’ll be able to find a pilot willing to make a bit of extra money.”
So far, so good. They were through the inspection phase, and now they just needed to get their cargo situated and get to the drop-off for the data. Easy. Senjen was prepared for this. He had done his research on the Korit, practiced what he would say when questioned, watched some movies...he could do this.
It was not long before the Tekeri started making offers to them. Offers for their cargo, offers to sell them things; he was pretty sure he had heard of this. In big cities, scammers would try whatever they could to get money out of anyone who looked like a tourist, but this wasn’t one of the cities. This was a space station, and he was a customs official, so he probably wasn’t an outright scammer. If Senjen remembered right, the forums he visited mentioned some dock workers had deals on the side with some vendors or businesses to get a commission on sales they had pushed their way. So...that meant the Tekeri probably could get them what he was claiming, but that didn’t mean they were the best deals. They were just what the Tekeri would get paid for.
Senjen had a feeling the Tekeri was not going to just give up with the sales pitches, so maybe he could just give the bait a nibble? He could keep some small talk going, since Light clearly did not want to, and maybe learn a bit in the process? He had to admit, there were some questions he was curious about. “You know, I did read that Utaysi could find alien hardware on Korit. It’s pretty tempting, I won’t lie. It’s honestly a bit embarrassing that the organics out here are ahead of us in robotics, but well...I guess we are pretty fresh off our home planet, all things considered. I heard they managed to code a software interface to be able to install a Utaysi personality matrix in a completely alien software environment. I’m, uh, not in the market for a fully body replacement now, though. How reliable are the software interfaces for individual upgrades with a Utaysi operating system?”
At first, Senjen had just occupied himself dealing with their cargo. There were plenty of crates to get out into the loading zone, and between the two of them, he was the one more suited to manual labor. Or at least...he assumed so. Senjen had been reading up as much as possible on the QV, Korit, and pretty much anything else he could think of when he decided to take the plunge and head out into space. Still, it felt like he had only scratched the surface. These gel suits the QV used were such a strange way to get around, but he supposed it made much more sense than normal environment suits for an aquatic species. He was only guessing, granted, but just by watching Light, it looked like the suit let him swim around in a way that would feel natural for him. That was something he could understand, at least. Utaysi were software; they could inhabit frames constructed in any imaginable configuration, if they wanted. But, when it came to day-to-day life, most Utaysi still wanted a body that was familiar to their ingrained instincts. Senjen himself was not so strict on that matter, but he still understood it.
In any case, Senjen was quick to get the cargo ready for unloading. The cargo hold doubled as an airlock on this ship, and it took just a few moments to depressurize before opening. He obviously had no need for a suit to step into the vacuum of space, and the sensation of it was quite unlike anything else. His frame’s outer plating was equipped to experience sensations, to feel through similar microsensors as an organic’s surface receptors, but unlike him, it was dangerous for them to expose their skin to pure nothingness. Senjen had spent most of his life so far on his homeworld, so walking out into a vacuum was still new to him. He was not sure he would be able to put into words what it was like to feel absolutely nothing, all over. The feeling of air was so easy to ignore, until it was gone.
Senjen was starting to feel nervous, though luckily it was easy for him to avoid showing it. He couldn’t stop the natural reactions in his mind, but it was as easy as changing a setting to prevent his body from acting on them. He could be as stoic as he needed to be. He had done enough research ahead of time to know what he should expect in this process, in theory. Now he just needed to act natural.
A customs declaration, standard procedure, nothing unusual. Senjen accepted the incoming request, which brought up a prompt in the corner of his field of view. As was “encouraged” by the docking authority, he had already prepared the customs declaration ahead of time, so it was just a matter of attaching the file and confirming payment for the docking fee. It contained their statement on the reason for their visit, any goods for import and their destination, their point of origin, identification, and declarations of certain possessions like the sidearm Senjen carried in his frame.
The Tekeri was quick to skim through the most important bullet points of their documentation. Efficiency was what mattered to business on Korit, so customs was trained to know what to look for, and what to leave for inspection later down the line to get their cargo moving quickly. From Senjen’s understanding, Korit customs were particularly efficient, especially since they had much less they had to care about. Still, the Tekeri did have something to say as he reached the end of the document, directing his attention to Light, rather than Senjen. “Armed synthetics require separate declaration and registration with the port authority, there’s a form you need to-”
The Tekeri was suddenly cut off, leaving them with empty comms and the dead silence of space. The Human nearby carried a scanner, and she had already been going over Senjen and Light with it as they spoke. She and the Tekeri looked to one another, likely speaking in a private channel, before the Tekeri turned back and approved their customs declaration. “Apologies, Utaysi are still uncommon travelers. Your declaration is in order, I just need you to confirm you understand and accept this agreement on the rules and regulations of weapon possession on the station.”
Another prompt appeared for Senjen, this time linking to a verbose agreement written as obtusely as possible in legalese, to which he just scrolled through to accept. No one ever read those things.
Now they just needed to wait for the Human to scan their cargo to make sure it matched the declaration, and answer any other questions they might have about it. Unless Light had any surprises he did not know about, they would mostly just find some trade goods, most prominent of which were canisters of a particular enzyme produced by some extremophile bacteria on an undeveloped world. It was heavily restricted in most systems due to its potential use in the production of some rather potent drugs, but not on Korit. Here, it was legally treated as any other import, and made for a good decoy for any attention.
Unfortunately, the decoy cargo belonged to their employer, so they would not see a bit of the profit from its sale. Their money would come from delivering the data, and for that, Senjen felt he understood why he had been hired. Simple robots were property that might be inspected, but plenty of worlds like Korit were eager to start doing business with the galaxy’s newest arrivals. It was not nearly so acceptable to try to root through a person’s mind, so he was afforded more privacy in his own head, as long as they did not give them a reason to do anything more.
“Careful there. We may not eat, but I still have teeth.” Senjen remarked when Light tapped his jaw. He was capable of speaking or making any other sound without moving his mouth at all, though Utaysi usually ended up doing so anyway. He had found that aliens were sometimes surprised at how many parts they constructed their frames with that were vestigial for machines, or how many mannerisms they had that were “unnecessary”, or just inefficient. What was strange to them just felt natural to the Utaysi.
After the tentacle moved away, Senjen tapped a claw to the side of his head. “The data’s tucked away safe, hidden with a bunch of other garbage. It’s encrypted anyway, and no, I didn’t try to access it.”
Senjen detached himself from the wall as well after they arrived in-system. “And speaking of garbage…” He muttered as he cast his gaze around the control room. While Light brought them in, he pushed himself closer to the center of the room to start gathering up the collection of loose objects that had shaken free and secure them somewhere. Fourteen Factories was a station that simulated gravity, so the automated systems broadcasted warnings to secure loose cargo on approach.
For large-scale shipping, loading and unloading in microgravity was more efficient, but only for ships that followed standardized templates which meshed well with automated procedures. Microgravity was more trouble than it was worth for dealing with small, privately-owned freighters like their own. The station broadcast a rather precise path for their vessel to follow to match the rotation of the station itself, though any decent autopilot could follow a simple flight plan. In fact, the station enforced strict regulations against the use of manual controls within its vicinity, as all incoming and outgoing traffic was AI directed for optimal efficiency, not to mention safety. Looking at the displays as they drew near, it was not hard to see why. The sheer number of ships coming and going to the station could make space feel crowded. Nearing the docking bay itself, the autopilot brought them in close enough to other “lanes” of traffic that Senjen could read the lettering painted on their hulls just through their own cameras.
Once in the docking bay and matched in velocity to the station’s rotation, their ship was “caught” by magnetic clamps and its engines immediately powered down so they could be pulled into position on their designated landing pad. The station itself was massive, and was arranged in ringed layers radiating out from its center. The perceived centrifugal force from the station’s rotation was what mimicked the force of gravity, at about sixty percent of the planet’s surface gravity. It was more than enough to prevent the docking bay from being filled with random loose objects from the veritable crowd of ships it hosted on any given day.
Senjen’s claws were latched onto what became the ceiling once their ship began to experience the station’s “gravity”, but he was actually rather graceful in dropping down and flipping over onto his feet once they were stationary. Right away, he moved back into the hold to start getting their cargo ready for unloading. “Say, is that gel suit of yours still good for a vacuum? It doesn’t look as, uh, ‘healthy’ as some others I’ve seen...if that’s the word for it.” Senjen asked. It was not practical for the station to repeatedly pressurize and depressurize chambers large enough to accommodate entire ships, so it was the responsibility of the crews of private freighters to be able to handle work in a vacuum.
Senjen floated his way into the cockpit, up towards the opposite wall from Light, and found a spot to latch his claws onto to anchor him again while he looked more closely at the displays. Psychologically speaking, Utaysi were natural climbers. It was instinct for them to be able to orient themselves as they pleased in three-dimensional space, and so their ships tended to lack any particular bias for up or down. He had read QV ships were the same, and evidently, so were whichever species had constructed this one.
Senjen was oriented upside-down in relation to his QV client. He tilted his head, looking down onto him for a moment. Out of all the aliens he had been learning of, he found the QV to be one of the most interesting just to look at. According to the archives they had recovered, sea creatures that somewhat resembled them had once inhabited the deep oceans of their homeworld, before the extinction. With no skeleton or shell and so many independent tentacles, their movements could be mesmerizing, and he imagined that was what it was like for those extinct creatures as well. His homeworld was a beautiful place, but it was lacking in biodiversity, and unless the Utaysi decided to intervene and seed new species themselves, it would be for tens of thousands of years.
“Sure I can, if you have a robot on-hand with enough processing power, that has been formatted to accommodate a Utaysi personality matrix.” Senjen answered. A metallic clanging briefly echoed through the room as he lightly struck his hand against his chestplate. “This is the only frame I own, right now.”
For a short time, Senjen’s gaze settled on the display that was charting out their course towards towards Korit. He connected with his frame’s onboard computer and double-checked his account. “Yeah, I have the fees and everything. I haven’t been here before, so how, uh...does this work, exactly? I’ve heard there isn’t much that is actually illegal on Korit, so is there anything we need to worry about with this package? Is it customs we need to keep it hidden from, or someone else?”
Interstellar Space en route to Korit – 2 years ago
Senjen was in the doorway to the cockpit of his client’s ship, idly observing the readouts and displays around him. It was safe to say that he only theoretically understood how to pilot a starship. He felt reasonably confident he could figure it out if he had to, but he did not have practice with it. If the patterns he had noticed since leaving his homeworld were anything to go by, most aliens would probably just expect him to be able to plug into the computer directly and pilot it with his mind. Sure, some Utaysi could probably do that, but it still had to be learned. He had the impression that most of the organics expected them to be like AIs they had created, or some other hyper-advanced programs. He supposed the second one was technically true for them, but that did not mean he wanted to spend his days contemplating the nature of existence or...doing math.
Ninety-two years. That was how long it had been since the Utaysi had made first contact, by their homeworld’s counting. It was almost a lifetime for some of the species out there, but they were still the newest civilization to this galaxy. Subtract the time it had taken to study languages, establish diplomatic contact, and learn enough about outside cultures that they could understand the aliens in more than just words, and there had been even less time for the galaxy to grow accustomed to their new mechanical neighbors. It had been about forty-five years since Utaysi citizens had become free to travel to alien worlds, but it was still very much more the exception than the rule. As they had learned, the state of galactic politics was...tumultuous, at best. Senjen might have considered himself a pioneer, an explorer, except he was pretty sure one could not be an explorer if the places he “explored” already had people living in them.
The claws on Senjen’s foot grasped the frame of the doorway to keep him anchored in place. His client was a Quelun-Vosh. Their ships were usually filled with water, or some kind of gel, from his understanding, but this ship didn’t seem to have been made by them. It was filled with air instead, though at least not oxygenated. Part of him sort of wished it had been water, if only to let him experience swimming for the first time in his life. Normally, his frame would sink like a brick in water, but out here in zero-G, he could have moved through it all as if floating. Granted, it would still be more effective just to pull himself along or push off the walls, but it would have been amusing for a while. Regardless, after a moment, he pushed himself farther into the cockpit and made a quick sound to grab his client’s attention.
“So this ‘Korit’ place, what’s it like? Any...specific threats we, or, um-...I need to keep a lookout for? For your safety.” Senjen asked. His frame was, like most Utaysi, constructed in the image of their organic creators. It was painted deep blue with some white accents on his arms and back, though it was somewhat faded and chipped in some places, revealing the dull metallic color underneath. At base, it was one of the most popular mass-produced civilian models, though he had bought it used. It was meant for general-purpose living, so it was unremarkable by any Utaysi standard. Fortunately, the Utaysi themselves were still a bit exotic by default out in the galaxy. As a part of preparing himself for galactic travel, he had installed some upgrades onto his frame, one of which were a set of lights integrated into his casing to put on a similar sort of light show as the QV’s bioluminescence. He did not have the slightest idea himself what they actually meant, but they synced to his translation program. And they were pretty to look at, at least.
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.
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:
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 this). 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.
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, desperate 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 would 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.
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 live. 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.
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.
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