Old Ones Version 2

Huzzah, you thought you'd be learning about these Old Ones, didn't you? Well, you were correct! Anyway, in-universe almost nobody knows about these guys as, believe it or not, secretive governments like being very secretive. I'm not including anything that none of the secretive governments know about, for now at least, so expect some logic gaps.

Simply put, the Old Ones seem to have been very genocidal. How genocidal, you may ask? They went around the Milky Way and possibly other galaxies with a very xenophobic opinion of life that did not originate from their planet: "wreck it before it evolves into something intelligent and wrecks us", abbreviated to "EXTERMINAYTUS EXTERMINAHTUS". If a species they found actually was intelligent, well, *raises guns*, that didn't go too smooth either. Anyway there are hardly any left now so that's cool.

Fun Meta Fact: I had to get far more inventive with how these guys would look than I was with other alien races, because the other races can be more easily based off of existing creatures on Earth considering the true origins of the majority of the galaxy's life ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), so inventive, in fact, that haven't actually given much information about how they look to prevent your brain from exploding. I'm actually very unsure about much of this precursor species except it being made up of genocidal maniacs and the fact that they built some cool stuff, including the cause for why so much of the galaxy's life has so much in common. Version 1's design is kinda taken by [REDACTED FOR COPYRIGHT SAFETY] which is why I changed it.

Basic Information

Anatomy

*For non-modified* Time to get freaky. They have 6 legs that have diamond armouring on them and stick out from the sides like spider or insect legs. For mobility they lift up their middle pair so that the other 2 have room for wider movements (and therefore longer strides) but for defense they will lock their legs together as this creates a kind of shield wall to either side of them. They have long tails that they use both scorpion and dinosaur style and, thanks to them having low-quality eyes on the backs of their back legs (which are defended by the conveniently see-through diamond), they can have a rough idea of where the thing they're trying to swipe at is - although this is more a thing for getting an opening to turn around and go scorpion style than a real offensive method of doing things. Thanks to them having 6 legs, they can also use any of their legs offensively - which they definately can do as that diamond armour also serves a horseshoe like purpose and has a lot of whack behind it, plus their tentacles are gonna turn out to be magic in a bit.

The legs, not requiring real feet thanks to the diamond armour acting like a horseshoe, are free to develop 7 dry-tentacle appendages that can be used for holding all sorts of things and are incredibly strong. This is great for them as they can wear out a hole in their diamond horseshoe through which they can stick all sorts of incredibly sharp or nasty things so that their whacking power is replaced by slashing power - and they can just retract their tentacles for it to go back to whacking power (against other animals or Old Ones with diamond armour, the technique here ends up boiling down to breaking through an opponent's armour with whack and then stabbing that part).

As for skeletons: none they got themselves an exoskeleton.

Now for the opposite to their rear end - their front end. They've got 4 eyes here, 2 of which are colourblind but brilliant in the dark and for spotting things which are far away, and have terrifying mouths. Due to how different their respiration equivalent is, they can breathe when in good air and store up tonnes of the chemicals they break down for when they have to become airtight going somewhere else. They have petal lips (think demogorgan from stranger things but if you stapled the petals around a person's mouth) but the actual mouth part had diamond teeth with moving muscles instead of gums that extend all the way to their stomach equivalent (basically rows upon rows of diamond teeth).

Finally: big brain time. Their brains are 7.3x as efficient as a human's at storing data in each big of grey matter space. They have very large brains that can grow back (but lost memories don't) and around 90% of the brain is dedicated to storing memories. These bois are very bad at learning but their minds record every bit of stimuli they ever feel, resulting in perfectly photographic memories. On top of that these guys have a method of transferring their memories between one another at will as they can lower their heads, press them together, stay still as some muscles link up and any memories one recalls the other experiences. The one who receives the memories also will never forget and so, despite being slow/bad at learning, they can still pass on useful information down dozens if not hundreds of generations.

Biological Traits

There seem to be 23 or more different subspecies, all with their own internal variations. Members of these subspecies who were captured rather than cloned don't seem to like each other very much.

Genetics and Reproduction

Eww... it's all.. slime.. slime everywhere.. they're all tangled up together in a nasty pile of like a dozen of them... what's that pile of purple stuff?... why is it shaking?...

Seriously though, they're capable of both sexual and asexual reproduction in some very interesting ways. Simply put; Old One produces "eggs" that have no "DNA" in them and they're inside a sack of weird juice with a semi-permeable membrane at one part on top of it and bone-like things as part of the lining so that it keeps its shape. Both the Old One that produced the sack and others can put their "sperm" equivalent, which specifically carries the "DNA" the Old Ones want them to carry, carries the "DNA" into the "eggs" (they do, however, have devices that let them put their "DNA" together from different individuals to mix and match to make the most preferable Old Ones). After that the "eggs" eventually mature into young little Old Ones that basically eat the juice that's in the sack (and each other, if there isn't enough juice or the juice isn't nutritious enough) before getting to the point where they leave the sack by breaking through the membrane and repairing it on their way out (btw the juice will usually be topped up every now and then by nearby Old Ones, who will also often add new eggs and "DNA" to the sacks if they still have some leftover).

Growth Rate & Stages

Well you've just read from conception to their equivalent to escaping the womb, so here goes. Baby to almost adult size. At adult size goes through stages to mature into adult while growing slightly, such as the thickening of armour. Once it is adult it still grows but very, very slowly.

Ecology and Habitats

Well if they hadn't gone and genetically modified themselves to be able to survive in so many different habitats we would be able to know for certain, wouldn't we? On top of that, they go ahead and take the modifications up to 11 by being able to breathe lots of types of air, and we don't know which ones they can and can't breathe naturally. Hell, these things can actually survive in space for up to 7 WEEKS.

But a sneaky one anyway: Their planet has rings and 9 clearly distinguishable moons. The rings in particular have different colours at different parts at night due to the different kinds of rocks they consist of. This makes navigation at night very easy and Old Ones living on the planet will memorize the features and time-cycles of these so that they can find out their exact location at any time.

Meanwhile on the surface: Their planet has lots of tectonic activity which traps air deep underground and releases it from deep underground. This combines well with the fact that their mantle makes ours seem like cold water to result in the trapped gases being superheated. This increase in energy allows for the gas molecules to come together to make molecules that have tonnes of energy stored in them, generally in either a gaseous or liquid state. When tectonic activity opens up again, the pressure difference (with there being far more pressure in the underground) launches this chemical air, and sometimes the high-energy liquid into the lower atmosphere. Coral-like equivalents to plants, which do not photosynthesize, use this chemical air for energy by breaking it down. The equivalents to animals in this world rekk these corals to get at this energy (they also breathe the chemical air but need more energy than that), as well as one another. Said animals are also more able to make use of the liquid chemicals due to their mobility. Due to how much more energy there is to be gained by eating fellow animals than just going for corals, the majority of animals on the planet are at least capable of scavenging and opportunistic killing. This is why Old Ones and many of the other animals native to their planet have diamond armour that grows out of them and is formed largely by eating carbon-rich soft sedimentary rocks and converting that carbon into diamond.

Dietary Needs and Habits

They eat chemical air, chemical liquid, coral and other animals native to their planet for energy.

They're able to puke up vomit that solidifies into, try guessing it, an amber-but-blue substance. This keeps the food safe from microscopic scum but the macroscopic ones are still generally able to break apart the weak and not-very-dense amber, assuming they're not actually capable of eating the amber with the food inside. For this reason, Old Ones will bury or otherwise hide their food and don't have to worry about leaving indicators to their future selves of there being food there because of their basically infinite memory banks.

Biological Cycle

Once every ~820 Earth days they will produce a sack and some "eggs" and "DNA" carriers. They can actually control the amount of "DNA" carriers they produce which is helpful for preventing over or under population, but they will always have an urge to produce enough DNA carriers to fertilize their eggs and then some to steal the sacks of eggs of other Old Ones to fertilize themselves.

Additional Information

Social Structure

Believe it or not; these guys love themselves some power over others. Power is usually shown by killing the previous leader, and in effect grants those in charge rights such as: getting more of the food, getting to tell others what to do, getting to take the sacks and eggs off of others for your own DNA continuing purposes, getting the coolest weapons and the like. That said, this seems to be a new/return to the stone age thing that they've done after the collapse of their civilisation and what was done before then is unknown.

Domestication

No. Not a good idea. They only let themselves be domesticated by other Old Ones as they have an instinctive hatred for everything else.

Uses, Products & Exploitation

They grow diamond on their bodies and can transfer memories. Imagine modifying VR tech to suit their brains, putting one through a program to create a "brain germ" that made them put the brain germ onto as many other Old Ones as possible and then caused them to kill one another.

Facial characteristics

Awww, petals.

Geographic Origin and Distribution

they're all either on isolated planets or inside ships in cryosleep... or held captive by various space empires, the oldest amongst which make sure they have unfortunate times while in captivity. There's also the The New Old One Empire but eh.

Average Intelligence

They have perfect memories from their tadpole-like phase in the sack (wow, ultimate euphemism used to describe a different type of reproduction) all the way to whatever their present state is and can transfer memories. They're pretty bad at learning new things and being creative, but managed to technologically advance anyway because of their immortality-memory transfer combo allowing for information to never be lost and their attacks on other races allowing them to scavenge their tech.

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

*naturally:* They can see 1.5x as much of the electromagnetic spectrum as us humans, especially towards ultraviolet as a means for them to avoid radiation. They also have lots of eyes on lots of parts of their body for 360ish vision, although the eyes that don't face towards the front are of low quality. Their hearing is awful but they can sense vibrations through the ground if something is nearby. Smell and taste are the same but they can distinguish between any 2 things with it, so long as they know what 2 said things are, and can immediately tell if something is edible or not and if they're heading into an area with air they shouldn't be breathing.

*with genetic modification, cyborgification, etc* It can hear you in space and see you from dozens of miles away in the dark while you're behind a wall.

Symbiotic and Parasitic organisms

Well, they killed all the parasitic ones. As for symbiotic; they farm the coral and animals of their native planet on the planets they terraform.

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

They got nicknames if that counts.

Major Organizations

The New Old One Empire

Beauty Ideals

Well their equivalent to sexual reproduction is done artificially so they don't really have beauty ideals. Instead, however, there is attraction based on "this guy is mega tough and if I buddy up with him I should be safe" and "this guy doesn't seem like he is gon' kill me so I should be friends with him". That makes them sound a bit less communal than they are.

Average Technological Level

They can convert regular matter into Exotic Matter and have the best Time Compression/Bending but don't really have much else to boast of.

Major Language Groups and Dialects

Oh boy, they do seem to have had a bunch of languages. But within the CHG facility they have basically formed a new one. They do have an instinctive language that basically extends to "follow me", "go away", "I am angry" and "there is a threat/food that way *points body-part in direction*" but for more, ah, advanced meanings like "okay now turn the screw 30 degrees clockwise and be careful or else the gun will explode" they've had to more or less make up words.

Common Etiquette Rules

Don't touch other fella's breeding sacks, eggs or food without their permission. This still applies to leaders but they're kind of able to bully others into letting them.

Common Dress Code

No clothes except those that are worn for practical reasons such as armour or insulation.

Culture and Cultural Heritage

Their culture is very, very racist towards non-vanilla Old Ones and non-Old Ones and is endlessly perpetuated by the passing on of memories.

Common Taboos

Being nice to members of other species. Attacking a fellow Old One without good reason.

History

They started on their planet, struggling against the more powerful creatures of their world and getting by because of their memories, ability to replenish their numbers and cooperativeness (which other species lacked). Eventually, however, they gained full dominance of their world, wiping out the majority of species that were in their way.

It was all going good for them until Ex-I-15 (Extinct Intelligent Species 15) attacked!

Specifically, it was an illegal mining operation by a company that consisted of ExI15 (from now on referred to as Jungas because Junga was actually a very fun, even if weird, movie) annnnnd wow the Old Ones actually rekked them and they rekked the Jungas hard. This resulted in the Old Ones having very negative opinions about life from outside of their world from the get-go. The company tried to cover this up by nuking the planet and going "nah it was totally always a nuclear wasteland" to which the Old Ones respond with surviving underground for several centuries before being able to resurface in which they hollowed out most of the crust within a continental plate (avoiding fault lines because why wouldn't you when you're building an underground society and KNOW where the fault lines are?). Since these things can pass around memories and never forget, you can bet they had some anger-fueled plans.

They did, however, get tonnes of this company's technology and so when they burst forth they did so with moderate tech. This Jungas, having by now become part of a 3-species-strong federation (as the Old Ones were apparently the 4th of 4 species in the Orion Arm to possess sapience at this time), were like "oh my goodness hello there would you like to join us?"

Old Ones: you nuked us.

Jungas: *sweating as the other 2 races give it funny looks* I don't know what you're on about.

Old Ones: Several centuries ago. We remember it very vividly.

Jungas: OHHHH, you mean back then, huh? Yeah that makes sense it must've been a private company well here's tonnes of technology and resources and space bases on your moons as payment how would you like to join our sapient species party?

Old Ones: *strip apart and put back together tech, learning and being taught how it works* okay we kill you now.

All 3 races: wut

Old Ones: BY THE POWER OF SHEER NUMBERS!

All 3 races: wait a second you're a 1-planet-race you can't have sheer nu- oh good multiverse how are there so many?

Old Ones: REPRODUCE AT YOUR MAXIMUM RATES AND THEN PASS ON YOUR MEMORIES! CHILDREN ARE NOT EXEMPT FROM CONSCRIPTION!

The other 2 races: Well thanks, Jungas, we're dead now.

Jungas: Yeah sorry about that but these guys are being unreasonable right?

And so the Old Ones, over the course of 3,000 years, became the only intelligent species in the Orion Arm and leaped forwards technologically by stealing the stuff of the other 3 races. F.

Anyhow, now they got to colonizing every planet in their new territory. They never finished this bit as they only had 2/3 of the Orion Arm and, even in that territory, noticed the presence of life. Not wanting future opponents like those 3 races (who were actually winning at first and put up a very valiant effort, each taking down many Old One soldiers with them), they decided to adopt a policy of "kill it". However, being spread out over a massive area, the Old Ones decided that the best way to go about this was to send robotniks to identify every planet in the Orion Arm that could hold life and then built Planet Loki as a means of making portals there to cleanse the planets in holy flaming holy fire.

The Old Ones also decided to take numerous planets from within their territory and break them down for use in the construction of Loki, which was to be a sort of utopia for the Old Ones. You see, gravity can be an issue for Old Ones as they never stop growing and so can be subject to death by crushed-by-own-weight if they're not moved to a lower gravity environment - which is why parts of Loki have different Thiccnesses so that they have different levels of gravity and it can be a place where Old Ones of all ages can live, so long as they're willing to move around every few centuries. Earth is one of 1, maybe 2, planets that were missed.

Ding dong it's the non-vanilla Old Ones! : Hello good sirs may we also have an equivalent to Loki?

Old One g'v't: no and know what I got a great idea.

Non-vanilla: Uh what great idea?

G'v't: genocide you all under the claim that you're not really Old Ones and then use your planets to build more Lokis for more vanilla Old Ones.

Non-vanilla: I got an idea too.

G'v't: Whuht?

Non-vanilla: GENOCIDAL REBELLION TIME

And so the Old One Civil War began. Both sides had more superweapons from the war with the 3 other species than they did terraformers (many of which were taken apart to make superweapons) and even then a superweapon is easier to make and use for a terraformer for the same reason that kicking a sandcastle is easier than making one. This did not end up ending well as literally ALL of their planets got superweaponed and became uninhabitable for them. What few survivors there were lived in cryosleep aboard ships that were floating through space that, slowly but surely, did run out of food and energy - resulting in the deaths of everyone aboard. With one exception.

A Vanilla Old One ship containing just 20 Old Ones and 50,000 fertilized eggs was almost out of electricity when it found a seriously damaged terraforming device. By gathering the debris and taking some parts of their ship, the Old Ones were able to fix the terraformer and put it to work as 15 of the Old Ones aboard and 10,000 eggs had to be cannibalized. Electricity was no longer a problem because solar panels. Once the terraforming was done, the Old Ones made their new colony and built up again to form the The New Old One Empire - which was later rekked but eh good effort.

Interspecies Relations and Assumptions

They want to extinctify every other intelligent species that exists. Interspecies relations are not friendly.

Scientific Name

Vetera recognituros

Lifespan

Forever, forever, these things just never dieee, ie, ie-ie-ie-ie

Conservation Status

Several tens of thousands are kept at a super secret CHG facility inside of a sun where they're interrogated for information about the Old One Empire and cloned so that the clones can be used in experiments. The LIR's approach to captive Old Ones isn't quite as extreme, just keeping them at the core of a planet with extremely poisonous air and tonnes of killer robots lurking around on it is good enough for them. Meanwhile there are still some Old One ships out there with Old Ones being kept in cryo-sleep inside.

Average Height

well those subspecies kick in a bit here as it varies from a foot to 12 meters. For the vanilla species we got ourselves 1.5m tall at adulthood but they never stop growing so there are those of them who are hundreds of meters tall.

Average Weight

For vanilla at adulthood we got ourselves about a tonne.

Average Length

Not counting the tail, 3 meters. Counting the tail, 12 meters. (for vanilla version)

Average Physique

Most are underfed.

Body Tint, Colouring and Marking

Well that varies quite a bit. There's a sub-species that is literally pitch-black and basically eats light, while there is another than can glow at will in various colours at different parts of its body. The vanilla bois are white and grey, although their diamond armour does sometimes have weird colours if they have abnormal diets or the sun is at a good angle.