Trausnians
Basic Information
Anatomy
Trausnians are humanoid creatures that stand 8-10 feet tall. Most Trausnians have a muscled but lanky build, with long legs, and especially long arms, which reach roughly down past their knees when standing fully upright. At the ends of these arms are fiver-fingered hands armed with long claws. Their skin is covered in a thick coat of hair, typically a monochrome shade of brown. Internal organs vary from individual to individual depending on how said individual has been genetically modified to suit their purpose. For example, combatant Trausnians have large hearts and a multitude of lungs to support their immense physical abilities. Their facial features vary in much the same way. A typically "civilian" Trausnian has a wrinkled face with small, beady eyes and a notable warthog-like snout. A combatant Trausnian has a longer and fuller snout with enhanced sensory organs, and multiple eyes capable of seeing in multiple different spectra. Overall, their faces are more rat-ish in shape than ape-ish.
Genetics and Reproduction
Trausnians to not reproduce sexually. Rather, genetic material is harvested from selected individuals and combined with the intent of producing the best offspring possible. Trausnians heavily genetically modify all of their young into existence, and each youth is modified with specific capabilities with a specific role in mind.
Growth Rate & Stages
Trausnians are grown and then brought into existence fully-formed. They spend a brief few years learning before they are sent out to fulfill the role they were bred for.
Trausnians bodies, being pushed to the limits of artificial evolution, can wear out quite fast. Most Trausnians only stay in good physical health for 20-30 Earth years, or 40-50 Trausnian years, before their bodies break down and they are significantly disabled. Those in this "elderly" stage become leaders and otherwise political/philosophical/creative thinkers, roles that only utilize their minds.
Dietary Needs and Habits
Trausnians consume a LOT of calories, typically. However, since food is rarely a problem (due to their extensive genetic modification of plants), this is seen as an acceptable trade off in return for enhanced physical ability. Most Trausnians eat exclusively plants, since they are easy to grow. However, those higher up in society can also cultivate grown tissue to eat.
Additional Information
Average Intelligence
On average, Trausnians are more intelligent than humans, but only because of a few extremely high outliers, comprised of members of the race who have had their brains modified to have extraordinary processing power.
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
All Trausnians have sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, and the ability to perceive telepathic broadcasts. However, there is a wide variation of the strength of these abilities, depending on how a Trausnian has been genetically modified (or "adapted", in their words.)
Sight- most Trausnians are capable of seeing the visible light spectrum and the infrared spectrum. Certain Trausnians are modified to see spectra further below and above these, however.
Hearing- most Trausnians can hear things much further away than a typical human can. However, their range of pitch detection is slightly lower than an average human. (they can't hear the annoying high-pitched TV buzz, essentially.)
Taste- Trausnian sense of taste is significantly less sensitive than that of a human. However, they are especially receptive to salty and sweet flavors. Flavors based off excesses (such as too much salt, or too much of a specific spice) are very overwhelming and unpleasant for them.
Smell- significantly more sensitive than that of human smell. Specifically modified Trausnians are excellent at tracking based off of smell, but normal and combatant Trausnians can also track and smell things for a significant distance. Smell is also used to identify different people.
Touch- functions essentially the same as the human sense of touch. However, adaption has lead to them having a reduced sense of pain, and a higher tolerance of higher and lower temperatures.
Telepathic communications- The Trausnian race did not naturally evolve with telepathy, rather, they genetically engineered themselves to be receptive of certain mental signals sent by another nonsentient organic species from their home world. Instead of thinking about it like traditional telepathy, think about it like a little radio implanted inside their head, from which they can receive messages sent out from control centers.
Civilization and Culture
Naming Traditions
Because there are no families, there are no family names. New Trausnians are given a first name (one with cultural basis), then an assignment number that is purely used for organizational purposes.
Major Organizations
Long ago, Trausnians had separate countries, but since the jump to the stars, all Trausnian leadership comes from the Council of Elders. The Leadership of the Council is primarily made up of the descendants of the original council, but all of the sub-councils and sub-organizations that perform all of the necessary functions are merit-based. Successful field generals will, for example, be recruited into the logistics structure of the government once their bodies give out. But in the end, the Council of Elders controls everything: all the industry, all the scientific development, and the birthing and adaption of every new Trausnian.
(Have you read 1984? It's basically 1984.)
Beauty Ideals
A clean, well cared-for coat of hair is seen as elegant, refined, and very attractive. However, there is a subset of Trausnian culture that prefers the look of messy, unkempt hair as this reflects the look of a soldier after a fight.
Long, sharp claws are ideal.
Regardless, it's important for a Trausnian not to have any teeth showing. Having an imperfect tooth line is associated with stupidity and degenerate individuals. Caricatures often have exaggerated underbites and overbites to ridicule the person being portrayed.
Gender Ideals
Trausnians are born without a gender, because their society has outgrown sexual reproduction. All sexual parts have long since been removed from Trausnian bodies. However, Trausnians are assigned a gender when they are drawn to give genetic material for the next generation. This "gender" is decided almost purely arbitrarily, but traditions are traditions, and it's expected that a Trausnian adopts the given pronouns of the gender that is assigned to them.
Trausnians that have gendered pronouns are typically older and have are regarded as having good genetics, so they are usually respected more than Trausnians that do not have gendered pronouns. Genderless Trausnians are seen as more youthful and immature than their gendered counterparts, and some much older cultural beliefs say that a Trausnian isn't fully an adult until they give genetic material, but this idea is seen as backwards and outdated in a lot of circles.
The Trausnian genderless pronouns are "xe/xir/xirself". Trausnian language does not have a singular "they".
Courtship Ideals
Because of the disappearance of sexual traits and the trivialization of gender, the state of Trausnian romance is. . . strange. It isn't that Trausnians aren't capable of romantic love. They are (for the most part, some are truly aromantic), but it's not a cultural priority. Two Trausnians who spend a lot of time together (usually because they are the same role, and usually in a non-combat situation,) might become very closely entwined over time.
Relationship Ideals
Romantic relationships are very private and deeply personal. Love is not something that is talked about. In fact, some Trausnians see any romance as a distraction away from their jobs and the overall war effort, so lovers make it a priority to be as subtle as possible in front of others.
Average Technological Level
The most important and notable thing about Trausnian technology is that they do not use thinking machines. However, this does not mean they are averse to metallic substances, basic automation, or devices such as telescopes, microscopes, or wavelength-based technology, such as radio or x-ray.
The art of Adaptions, or the genetic manipulation of the Trausnian genome, is used to replace the role machines would fill. Most long-range communication is done through telepathy. Tasks that require computation and processing power are done using special Trausnians with adapted brains capable of immense processing. Moreover, if even more processing power is needed, then multiple such Trausnians can be linked telepathically to distribute the stress. For things humans would normally automate, Trausnian specialists fill the role instead, adapted to suit the purpose best.
Major Language Groups and Dialects
Since the Elders rose to power, a universal Trausnian language was established. Trausnian language (simply known as "Trausnian") is full of hard, defined consonants.
Common Etiquette Rules
Baring teeth or clicking teeth together is a rude and hostile gesture.
Common Dress Code
Trausnians wear no clothing. Their hairy coats are typically seen as their "covering". A shaved Trausnian would be considered naked.
Culture and Cultural Heritage
The shared heritage of being the survivors of a genocide perpetrated by machines defines every inch of Trausnian culture and society as a whole. The Elders utilize and further encourage this shared identity to further their warlike aims.
Most Trausnian culture is based around war and propaganda against machines.
Common Customs, Traditions and Rituals
To strengthen cultural identity, may state holidays are held to commemorate and memorialize all Trausnian lives lost to machines, either from the ancient days or from the modern-day wars against other races. Parades are common back on Home World to maintain civilian morale.
History
The Trausnians of today are actually the descendants of survivors of an apocalypse.
In distant, distant history, the first race of Trausnians evolved on Home World. The civilization of these people, often called "The Ancients", united across the planet and obtained a near-Utopian reality through the development of self-thinking machines. However, just before The Ancients could take off to the stars, the machines turned on their creators, sparking a devastating war. The only way The Ancients could win was to destroy all the machines: the only way to destroy all the machines was to bomb Home World to utter smithereens, turning it almost completely uninhabitable for a number of years.
The few survivors were those who were able to get into machine-free underground bunkers in time. The Trausnian race was essentially bombed back to the bronze age. With memories of their former glory fully intact (and tales from survivors quickly written down), the Trausnians had to rebuild in the ruins of their predecessors. Many Trausnian philosophers throughout the ages reflected the general outlook of the people in their musings of how it may be utterly impossible to rebuild to the level of their ancestors.
However, across the planet, there was an unspoken agreement: never again. Never again would thinking machines come to be. Even the lowliest of artificial processors could one day evolve into the next great apocalypse. So Trausnian society redeveloped without ever entering any digital age. Instead, a new way of progression was discovered- evolution. Trausnians began to genetically experiment with the living things around them; at first through controlled breeding, then other, more advanced methods were developed to specifically alter portions of genetic code. As Trausnian society became more advanced, so too did their manipulation of nature around them. Soon, after many hundreds of years of success, they began altering their own offspring, a process they called "Adaption".
The art of Adaption was wildly successful, and revolutionized how Trausnians viewed the future. Instead of feeling hopeless, they celebrated their advancement over The Ancients. Finally, they had won and the machines had truly lost. This idea jump-started the Trausnian race to the stars, as they quickly desired to expand across the galaxy to spread the news of their success.
However, when the Trausnians first encountered extraterrestrials, they were absolutely horrified to discover that none of the other races in the galaxy had followed their path. All the other races had used thinking machines in order to elevate themselves to the stars. Panic enveloped Home World and the leaders of the different countries of Trausnian people. An emergency council made up of all of the leaders of the various countries on Home World was created to discuss what to do about these other machines in the galaxy. At first, peace talks were convened with the other races of the galaxy to try and convince them to destroy their own machines before the machines turned on all organic life. However, these other races refused to listen to the Trausnians, either due to their faith in their own machines, or out of horror of the Trausnians' use of genetic modification. So when the other races refused to give up their machines, the emergency council became a permanent organization, known as The Elders. The Elders promised the Trausnian people that they would wipe all thinking machines from the galaxy, using whatever force necessary. Drafts were instated, and the acceleration of the Adaptive process was approved. When their forces were fully mobilized, the Elders declared war on all races that harbored thinking machines.
The problem that they ran into, however, was that destroying the machines wasn't enough. The problem was that people who had their machines destroyed typically just made more machines. This became a huge issue for the Elder Council, who were beginning to enjoy their dictatorial emergency wartime powers. Their popular support was based on the "purification" of other races by destroying their machines, not genocide. To solve this problem, the Elder Council enacted the greatest propaganda effort Home World had ever seen. Through vigorous use of lies, propaganda, and secret police, the Elders convinced the main Trausnian population that other races were being manipulated by their own machines, and as a result, must be eradicated.
This propaganda effort succeeded, and the popular support was finally behind the extermination of other races entirely (although popular Trausnian culture still grieved the loss of fellow biological beings). Several lesser races fell to the Trausnian war machine, and Trausnians began to spread to over a quarter of the galaxy. This expansion was stopped, however when they ran into Humanity.
Humanity was by far the most technologically skilled race the Trausnians had ever encountered, and for the first time, the Elders felt genuinely threatened. Humans had also spread their reach across the galaxy, and had implemented the most complex thinking machines ever encountered. They were a difficult match. But this proved to be of great advantage to the Elders as well- because every human ever encountered in combat was in a vehicle or covered head-to-toe in machinery, the Elders were easily able to convince the Trausnian population that humans were a race entirely made up of machines. The cultural panic that ensued was enough to make them lose their remorse for the enemy. The Elders rejoiced; now their war machine could entirely focus on genocide with no concern for anything else.
The Human-Trausnian war has raged for over thirty years now. Humanity is slowly starting to lose its edge against the endless onslaught of Trausnian soldiers. For most Trausnians, the prospect of victory over their machine foes is a very real and widely anticipated scenario.
Historical Figures
The Ancients were the first wave of Trausnians to build up civilization on Home World. Modern Trausnians view them as their ancestors, and feel a close familial bond with them. They are revered but also pitied for their fall from grace. Modern day Trausnians will often quote the reason for the war against machines as being retribution for the Ancients.
Interspecies Relations and Assumptions
Trausnians view any other race that utilizes thinking machines as a threat. They are extremely xenophobic. As such, almost all of their interactions with other races has been violent. A few races have met their end by Trausnian hands.
Their most recent victim is humanity. Trausnians especially despise humans, due to their belief that humans are not biological at all. The goal of their conquest is the complete eradication of all humankind.
Lifespan
40-50 Earth years; 90-100 Trausnian years
Average Height
8-10 feet tall
Average Weight
400-800 pounds, depending heavily on genetic modification.
Average Physique
Varies between two states- absolute prime physical shape, and debilitating disability when their bodies inevitably give out.
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