Dragios

Dragios come from a lighter gravity planet, similar to Elivera, in a system several hundred light-years from Elivera. They are tall beings with a light-weight bone structure: two wings, two arms, and two legs. They are covered in a short dense fur-like feathery down, the colors of their down/skin is changeable due to specific glands that allow them to adjust their coloration to blend in with surroundings. Most tend toward a default of indigo and UV color, which to a human eye would make them appear white and indigo.
They have a narrow snout for the nose with the mouth underneath, and have omnivore teeth -- some flat and some pointed that allow them to eat flora and fauna. They have wide, deep set of eyes on either side of their narrow nose-snout, situated just a few centimeters above. A ridge forms their brow above their eyes, and thick fur coats their head in a protective layer against cold.
Long, flexible ears sit atop a ridged skull, and they can twist their ears independently to better hear sound.

Basic Information

Anatomy

Vertebrae that is mostly hollow, the hollow portions filled with a gel-like that acts as a protection to impacts, the gel-liquid surrounds the bones as well and then cartilage and muscle covers the gel-liquid.
They have large wings, strong and wide sternum, and their wings are mostly used for gliding. They have short muscular legs for running, but can tuck up the legs when flying. They have separate arms from their wings, which they use to manipulate objects or climb. Their wings can fold back against their back to form a rounded lump when not in use.
Three fingers a thumb for dexterity.
Neuron clusters along spine, within skull, and along arm and leg bones to assist with the extrasensory capabilities of detection their environment -- they also serve as an extension of their large brain.
Glands pervasive through entire body to regulate body functions; they also harbor an extensive amount of stem cells that allow for minute shape-changing abilities, thus as changing the color of their fur/skin to blend in with surroundings, or to regenerate limbs.

Genetics and Reproduction

Have four sexual organs, and can change from one sex to the other at will. Two small organs near the top of the hips house the hormones and stem cells necessary for the reproductive organs to activate; the hormones also relegate the sexual cycles. During the sex cycle, when it is possible to impregnate, pheromones excrete as sweat drops on the skin/fur. The reproductive organs that allow for penetration/impregnation is activated by electrical stimulus from touch. Narrow window in sex drive cycles allow for this stimulus to drop one of the reproductive organs into a pouch area just above the groin/excrement area of the body, between the legs. Which reproductive organ drops depends on the electrical stimulus from the individual and their partner; the organ that intakes DNA and hosts the growth of an embryo opens up passage in the pouch (where the skin retracts), allowing for the other to penetrate with an organ that delivers the DNA. It is possible for the two individuals to simultaneously penetrate and receive at the same time, thus impregnating each other.
Most Dragios only give birth to one young at a time, and the sex cycle that allows for impregnation used to be multiple times a year, but as the Dragios spread out beyond their homeworld, this cycle began to extend, so that as of 900 E, many Dragios can only reproduce once every few years. Some are born sterile, and it has been a cause for concern among the community as they search for why this phenomenon is happening and how to reverse it.

Growth Rate & Stages

A young Dragios takes 26 solar-years to mature into a full adult. Their wings do not fully grow out until they are around 16 years of age, this is also the time their reproductive organs begin to grow and a pouch takes shape in the groin area.

Ecology and Habitats

Worlds rich with oxygen -- where oxygen is at minimum of 25% of the atmosphere is optimal for this species.

Dietary Needs and Habits

Dragios are omnivores, so can consume specific types of flora and fauna. Most of the food they eat is exported from their home-world and grown in specialized labs that are sealed from the surrounding environment. It is rare for them to incorporate any species from the planets their colonize into their food supply, at least not until they have had time to study and sterilize possible pathogens that could harm the reproduction of their species.
They have a high metabolism, and thus need a high calorie count, but often eat smaller meals multiple times a day to account for this. The metabolism statistic is an average across the species as not all Dragios have a high metabolism, but it is typical for them.

Behaviour

Most Dragios has an innate sense for discovery and knowledge. This has led them down the path of investigation, science, and exploration. Since their species originated as migatory birds before evolving sentience, it is postulated that this drive to discovery and explore comes from the migatory nature of ancient forebears.
Due to this trend, rationality has taken precedence over emotions, and it is seen as uncouth to reveal one's emotions strongly while in public. Emotional displays are often kept to private moments between trusted individuals.

Additional Information

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

They have seven major senses:

• Touch: this includes general touching to feel an object, but they also can send out limited 'electrical' impulses to 'sound' out an area. These are limited to a radius of 25 meters.
• Hearing range 10 decibels to 30,000 decibels
• Smell: limited olfactory organs, mostly can detect a range of smells similar to that of humanoids
• Sight: upper infrared range to lower UV range
• Taste: limited organs, similar to that of humanoids
• Mind: can send thoughts to one another silently when minds are entangled; this is a sense that can develop over time through trust and consent.
• Adaptations by Nanites: quantum sense that allows them to sense probability fields and states of matter

Civilization and Culture

Major Organizations

Political States

27 nation-states exist under the Union of Harmony: Kanaränšenov. The Kanaränšenov governs international trade, scientific advancement, collaboration with member states on rights observers, security ethics, statute of rights, and cultural and economic development. Nation-states agree to the Kanaränšenov charter -- known as the "harmony of souls" or Kuaräniquarüiv.

Cultural factions

...

Education

All citizens required to take twenty years of learning, where knowledge checks performed through projects are done every five years to reach a sufficiency in a specific knowledge arena. Part of the lessons are transfused through mindshare hubs, and others require hands-on learning. All Dragios individuals start the learning paths at age 7. By age 20, a career path is determined through intensive knowledge checks, interest tests, and ability analysis. All further education focuses on the knowledge necessary for that career path. There is very little mobility between career paths.

Average Technological Level

Galactic level technology. They are the creator of the wormhole gates, which connect systems to each other.

Major Language Groups and Dialects

Dragios Language

Dragios language involves examination of their singing patterns and vocal tones, as well as the consonant-like sounds they use to delineate words. Having multiple vocal chords that can vibrate independently of each other, they are able to sustain 2 to 3 notes at the same time, thus allowing for a more intricate singing language.
Tonal range is 10 decibels to 4000 decibels, though their hearing range is up to 30,000 decibels. Not all individuals have this depth of range. There is four distinct groups that overlap somewhat in tonal range:

• Val-žuu: vocal range of 10 DB to about 1100 db
• Oožuu: vocal range of 900 db to 2390 db
• Kažuu: vocal range of 1900 db to 3100 db
• Qežuu: vocal range of 2900 db to 4000 db

History

The Dragios originated from the Dira system within the Töhisilika "arm" of the Milky Way Galaxy. Being a collective species that had deep empathetic traits and mind-bonds, they tended to deal with conflicts through intense negotiations and rehabilitation methodology. War was not common on the planet due to the shared mind-bonds meant the pain could be felt among multiple individuals on both sides of the conflict. Dragios consider physical violence primitive of non-sapient creatures.
Multiple ethnic groups existed upon Dira, but overtime, they consolidated into the Dragios Aefülikav (loosely translated as we-who-create-continuous-existence). Within 2 million years since their emergence as a sentient species on Dira, they had established spaceflight, and were experimenting with wormhole technology. Their first expedition to the next closest star system - Unikatükiv - took 25 solar-years, where the engineers underwent extreme physical stress due to the anti-matter drive testing the boundaries of what the Dragios body and its protection suits could withstand. The closer to the speed of light, the more stress, and the less likelihood of all the engineers surviving the flight. This first expedition was the first in-person expedition to move one end of a created wormhole to another star system, and then build the locking mechanism to hold the wormhole open for traversal. The expedition survivors were heralded as great heroes.
Robots were then constructed that could build a primitive enclosure and locking mechanism to create a hole large enough for single individuals to pass through. This allowed the Dragios to build a system of wormholes by shooting the tech a incredibly high speeds (up to 1/6th the speed of light), as the robots were manufactures to withstand the stress of the voyage. Once the primitive locking mechanism was in place, the robots utilized the ship and their own power to hold the end of the wormhole open for the engineer techs to arrive and finish building the full mechanism and enclosure. This proved a successful way to set up inter-solar system colonization and trade.
All wormhole entrances were build underground in order to avoid the interaction of various quantum particles that bombard a planet within each system -- this allowed a thick metal and stone to protect against such particles that could destabilize the wormhole. This was particular important on planets that had little atmosphere and magnetosphere protection against such quantum particles (many of which originated from the system's star(s) or from nearby galactic events such as pulsars or other gravitational objects that emitted heavy amounts of high electromagnetic energy/particles.
When the Dragios located Elivera, they designated it a science planet, and only laboratories and basic resource depots were built on the planet. They then used it as a experimental site to try to find a cure to their growing sterility. The more the Dragios expanded into other systems, the more individuals were born either sterile or with sex cycles that allowed reproduction only once or twice in their lifetime. Extensive studies were done to see if it was due to the pathogens of other planets or the dangers of radiation within space itself, and so the Dragios created heavy armored ships to try to protect against the radiation dangers. However, the studies showed that part of the issue was the DNA components related to their reproduction was showing corruption, and the genetic material of their homeworld was not sufficient to fixing this issue.
This is when the Dragios Aefülikav voted to locate compatible species that could be used to extract DNA for experiments to solve the impeding sterilization and end of their species. Fleets of robotic ships were sent in all directions from Dira and Elivera, and multiple scans of planets were done to try to find a species that had a DNA of at least 75% match of most major indicators.
Humanity was one such species, and thus the robotic fleets, small ships that resembled tear-drop shapes that shifted into a winged form upon atmospheric entry, descended upon Earth and built wormhole entrances deep underground in areas with sparse population. The engineers that finished the wormhole enclosures mostly sent probes with stealth shields to monitor humanity and take more samples to confirm.
As Humanity progressed into the 21st century, their technology began to detect anomalies, and thus the first Dragios probe was captured by Norway, not far from a wormhole enclosure. This was the first in-person meet between humanity and Dragios. The sect of scientists that met with the Norwegians to try to determine if they were sentient or not, determined they did not meet the parameters of Dragios' rules of sentience. One rogue scientist on this team disagreed with this assessment based on other data that showed the growth of civilizations, language, culture, and other requirements of sentience -- and that the datapoint of "lack of empathetic mental bonding" was not suitable for determining the sentience of all species. This created a rift in the scientific community based on Elivera.
In-fighting caused the scientists that did not view humanity as sentient to shift to other wormhole entrances, and the rebel scientists continued to secretly correspond with the Norwegian embassy to try to determine a way to stop the continued experimentation on a sentient species. The rebels believed this to violate one of the major acts of the Aefülikav decision trees -- where if a sentient species is discovered, their planet be made a sanctuary with no allowed involvement in the impediment of their growth.
In the other wormhole entrances, scientists began to take live humans into their laboratories for testing and infusion of nanites. This is the time period of the Laiht and where the story of the Dragios Twins: The Lost Ones (Kate and Kia's story) takes place.
At the end of the Laiht period of Elivera's history, the human leaders, who took on the role of Vukasin -- making them eligible to speak on behalf of the planet's inhabitants to the Aefülikav councils -- voted to have the Dragios leave Earth and Elivera and banned them from the systems for one thousand solar-years (based on the solar-years of Dira's system, which has a much longer year than Elivera and Earth). These negotiations meant all scientists except for a handful of Dragios rebels, who had been exiled to Elivera due to their transgressions, had to leave both systems.
The studies done on humanity had given the Dragios some hope of curing their growing sterility, so many Dragios relocated back to the ruined landscapes of their home system (their star nearing its gas giant phase), and began expanding closer to the galactic center in search of other possible compatible species. All wormhole connections between Dragios outposts and Earth and Elivera were shut down.

Origin/Ancestry

From the planet Dira in the Töhisilika "arm" of the Milky Way Galaxy

Lifespan

150 - 250 years

Average Height

1.7 to 2.9 meters

Average Weight

45 kg to 80 kg