Name: Limenal Prycten Ran’Ten
Gender: Male
Age: Yuteni can live to a venerable 240 years, but Limenal is not even halfway through his lifespan, being around eighty-six years old.
Species: The Yuteni were one of the first species that mankind encountered upon reaching the stars. Intelligent, organised and spacefaring, their first FTL engines were put into practise mere decades before those of humanities were. With both societies eagerly attempting to understand the other, it was under a year before translations were possible, and first contact with extra-terrestrials was made.
Yuteni are, on the whole, fairly different to humanity. To Yuteni, slavery is merely another punishment much like prison, and slaves are not unusual to be found within Yuteni controlled space. Yuteni are also rather spiritualistic in outlook, and most unlike humanity, have had a rather peaceful history. The Yuteni had never even considered splitting the atom would have military applications until after they met mankind. Most unusually of all however is the unique link that the Yuteni have to what they call the ‘third dimension.’
All Yuteni have three eyes- two in a relatively human placement, and one on their forehead. For most of the species, this third eye remains stubbornly shut for their life, a vestigial organ with no true purpose. A small minority, often considered a subspecies, known as the Prycten (a word that roughly translates into something along the lines of ‘those who have been gifted by the universe a great boon’ or alternatively ‘the gifted,’) will instead have their third eye open, opening them up to an entirely new point of view, and allowing them to utilise powers once considered magic.
Yuteni ships are tightly linked to this ‘third dimension.’ Each Yuteni ship requires a Conduit to function, a Prycten specifically trained for the role. This Conduit functions somewhat as a captain and navigator combined, their third eye steering them through the currents of a subspace that few other races appear to be able to find themselves in.
Although leagues apart in some ways, in others Yuteni are very similar to humans. They breathe oxygen. The Yuteni homewolrd of Ulacoqn is closer to their system’s sun, whilst still remaining in the Goldilocks zone, and as such is drier than Earth, but shares a wide and diverse ecosystem, many of whom interact with the ‘third dimension’ much like the Yuteni. Ulacoqn’s atmosphere contains a majority oxygen/argon chemical blend, making it safe to breathe for humans (although many have remarked that they constantly feel the need to swallow.) One of the largest issues with Yuteni and Human interactions was virulent pathogens that could prove lethal for the other but were harmless for the former- a problem solved after a cross-species research project successfully created vaccinations that could be prepared for any individual that wished to interact with the other species.
Yuteni and Humans are not biologically compatible for offspring, although that doesn’t mean that thanks to their similar reproductive systems there haven’t been more personal Yuteni-Human relations.
Appearance: Limenal, like many Yuteni, is smaller than a human of the same maturity would be. Standing at 4’9” tall, he has a rich purplish-pink coloured skin, and dark cobalt-coloured hair. This hair is kept drawn up into two braid which run along the top of his head in two ridges, the style drawing hair away from his third eye.
All of his eyes are a slightly lighter shade of pink than his skin is, with his third eye being unusually fluorescent and bright. When open, it seems to draw attention in towards the iris, which is larger than those of either other. He wears the standard uniform for a Yuteni shipgoer, this being a skintight suit of a substance very similar to nylon, coloured appropriately for the rank of the person wearing it- in Limenal’s case, a pearl white.
Rank or Role: First Officer. Second-in-command of the URS Prophet’s Rest, only below the Admiral.
History: Limenal’s selection as First Officer of the URS Prophet’s Rest was not altogether unexpected. It was known that the Federation would inevitably elect a Yuteni to share a high-ranking position on the ship, since they had been one of the first Sapient races to actually wish to interact with humanity, and the first to join the Federation in its nascence. A Conduit was also a natural choice, as they had the technical and commanding know-how to work on a ship for a long period of time. Limenal’s choice was simply a matter of choosing one of the most outstanding Yuteni available, and requesting for him to be interred within the URS Prophet’s Rest.
Limenal’s rise to power started when he was born on Iralkin Prime- the first colony established on a world that was not Ulacoqn. Born with his third eye wide open, he was rapidly placed within a specialist boarding school designed to enhance and improve upon the powers he had been blessed with as a Prycten.
Spending his early adolescence doing nothing but practising and honing his psionic powers, he was placed as a Conduit for a mining ship in centre of Federation space, a role he was wholly unprepared for. Not in that he could not pilot the ship, but that his education had left little time for socialising, and he was a poor commander, a fact that was mitigated by the monotonous work that a construction ship takes part in.
It was in battle that he truly came into his own. A group of Cravyn pirates had concealed themselves in an asteroid before emerging and attacking the system that Limenal was working on. A true tactical mind was revealed as the young Prycten utilised a ship wholly undesigned for combat in a week-long battle with the pirates, constantly dropping into Yuteni subspace before popping out, the mining laser mounted on the ship carving gouges in his opponent’s vessels.
After this action, and with a crash course on leadership, he was assigned to be the Conduit of a cruiser within the Yuteni navy, a role which allowed him to stretch his combat wings further. As he participated in more battles, he received further and further recommendations for higher command. Eventually placed in a true commanding position in a Federation’s URS ship, he was one of the natural choices, choosing to join the URS Prophet’s Rest after declining the offer for the URS Angel’s Rest. Quite why he did this is totally unknown, and he never comments.
Psych Report:Pryctens in general tend to be fairly eccentric individuals. The gift affects different individuals in ways just as diverse as their powers, but Limenal has potentially received a very useful sort of eccentricity. People who have seen him at work often describe him as ‘maniacal ’ ‘driven’ or ‘fanatical,’ with the Yuteni finding it difficult to finish working at a problem until one is complete. A downside to this is that Limenal is extraordinarily single-minded. Multitasking is a tremendous effort for him- as it means that now he must spread his single-minded drive over multiple tasks, but surprisingly this bull-headedness can come in handy when commanding a ship.
Limenal also refuses to doubt himself. Once his mind has been made, that was the course he had plotted, and there would be no deviation unless outside factors shifted the situation. Thanks to the unreliable Yuteni relativistic ‘generators,’ which are often in flux, this served him well, as it allowed him as the Conduit to plot courses even when stress upon the ship became extreme.
Extraordinary skills: Limenal is a Prycten. This means that by opening his third eye, he may access the so-called ‘third dimension,’ tapping into the psionic potential of the Yuteni species. Pryctens may telepathically communicate complex thoughts with other Pryctens, whilst also sending and receiving more basic forms of communication, such as emotions, from other races with limited empathic ability. Many psionic powers that Limenal uses more commonly however are less savoury. Meddling with brains, including disrupting synaptic connections can cause people to have short-term memory problems, panic, fall unconscious and experience extraordinary sensory overload. Physical injury can also be caused by psionics, the most common form being to cause necrosis in otherwise healthy tissue. Pryctens can also, as humans call it, ‘astrally project,’ centring themselves outside of their body and seeing the world around them very differently to how they normally do so.
In fact, the true limit of Pryctens powers is unknown. It is theorised that as a Prycten gets older and his brain matures further, his powers simply grow and grow, and indeed this does seem to be the case, but there is no easy way to tell in many cases. These abilities make Pryctens useful and terrifying in equal measure.