Karth

Quick facts:

Karth

Karth

aka: Metal Crabs, Steel Spiders, Silver Starfish,

Species Type

Metaloid

System of Origin

Torovil

Nations commonly found in

Karthenon

Related Species

N/A

Sharp buildings, sharper bodies. The ships, architecture, and people are sharpened to an extreme degree. Massive knife-like blades, built like a plane without any sense of aerodynamics, only natural flow of matter and minimization of surface area in the direction of travel. Covering asteroids like bugs on a decaying fruit, this species scavenge the metal from the asteroids they live upon, consuming it and using it, giving them a deep understanding of tool use. Were it not for the other metalloid organisms in their ecosystem, they would have gone extinct millennia ago.

History

The first recorded nation of this people was the All Encompassing Fellowship of the Selltic Ring. The Seltic Ring was the early name for their outer ring at the time. The second and third nations ocurred during the first one's end, thousands of years later; tens of generations, spread across 2 rings, forming their own clans and groups; The 2nd was the Bergen Dynasty. It lasted barely 600 years, a straight line of 4 asexually reproduced rulers who died young. It fell at the end of the First Age, the solar flares' effects on their ring was too much for the nation, the change in geography and the deaths of their Steel-Buds wiped them out to the point of annihilation.

The third nation was the one that lasted longest, the Democracy of Karthag. Karthag lasted halfway through the Third Age, but the threat of the Titanium Terrors grew too massive due to their displacement from the environmental effects of the third age. Their section of the inner ring was scrambled too much, their Steel-Buds wiped out, so they ran out of metal very quickly and had to spread out to find more metal, taking centuries to break through the defenses of Karthag. After they fell, the new nation was the current one: Karthenon. A king was established, Marth of the Third Age. He championed military strength, nearly wiping out the Titanium Terrors. The Steel-Buds were able to prosper in this age and spread enough to bring a massive amount of metal back into their system, enough to revitalize the Titanium Terrors' population.

In the fourth age, the Metallophages prospered and spread as well; the attempts to contain them were overzealous, breeding a strong and resistent strain that soon was able to infect Karths and not just Steel-Buds. This led to doctors and medics, researching their own bodies and the Metallophages. Once they reached a level where they had control over the metallophage threat, they transitioned into scientific research, of the wider universe; this led to their realization that there was more to the world, that they had more to see, pushing them to the outer universe. At the start of the 5th age, they were able to predict and observe the solar flares from their intrasystem ships for the first time in their history. When they discovered that planets could be habitated, they began theorizing on normal life, how it would manage to survive in the strange 'atmosphere' that plagued most planets. Upon learning that this life was real, they desperately sought knowledge of these people. All the while they've been planting Steel-Buds and the Metallophages that go with them on every asteroid field they can find in the hopes that even the ones lacking in metal might someday become habitable for their people.

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Society & Culture

A society built on community assistance. The years it takes to raise an egg to a child would have rendered the species extinct had they not developed a culture around protecting each other, especially the youth. A common way to show affection is to craft a beautiful shape out of metal and give it to the target for them to eat. This culture has an admiration for sharpness. To hone ones clinging-limbs to a sharp point is an attractive trait, and having sharp architecture is a projection of this attraction(Similar to phallic buildings on Earth today).

Every 4-6,000 years, their sun erupts with Solar Flares, reorganizing the asteroid belts and once it obliterated a planet, sending it out of orbit and breaking it up enough to add to the asteroid belts, both of them. The Ages are separated by the solar flares, each one scrambling the nation and their effects on the asteroids can be dated more easily and consistently.

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Appearance

A saucer-shaped main body, a ring of sharpened, specialized limbs to hold onto the asteroids they live upon. The mound-like head of the creature is adorned with 7 'faces'. The 'faces' are the same sequence/pattern of lights, facing 7 different directions(6 outward and one on top) that flicker and shine to communicate. Typically one is used at a time, but multiple can be used at once. It is the same as projecting a voice, communicating in a wider range. They are the colors of their diets, their metals a mix of various colors, textures, and styles based on the metals consumed. A common genetic trait is a series of crystals on the body. The cause of which is the loss of certain cells to sublimate matter, unable to clean themselves. They are commonly excised when they cover a joint, preventing its movement.

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Biological Notes

Living for multiple centuries before any modern advancements in medicine, the species takes years to spawn and develop. Almost l of their cells can induce a sublimation effect, converting a solid to a liquid and a liquid to a gas and, with great care and effort, a gas to a plasma. Their bodies use plasma as an energy for their nervous system and for chemical reactions. It is maintained in a small amount at the core of the body, perpetually sublimated by the surrounding body.

When giving birth, 1-4 Karths contribute genetic material in the form of a piece of their body to one of the reproducing members. Asexual reproduction is possible but very rarely done. A child is formed by the worker cells, an internalized body part that was once a Metallophage but was annexed into the Karth's biology hundreds of millions of years ago.

Their environment consists of themselves, Metallophages, Titanium Terrors, and Steel-Buds. Metallophages are micro-organisms; some have been annexed by the Karths(Similar to mitochondria or chloroplasts) and now function like worker cells, moving the absorbed metal around their body. The Metallophages are the equivalent of diseases, pathogens that infect others and are repelled by the slight magnetic field that the larger ones' bodies generate. They are much of what converts the waste of other organisms into material usable by the Steel-buds. The Titanium Terrors are predators to the Karths, dozens of feet long and remarkably similar to whales, these beasts consume amounts of gas and metal, using the metal to construct their bodies and the gas for propulsion. They are the only creature in the ecosystem capable of zero-gravity self propulsion. They have a venom that prevents Karths from sublimating, causing any sublimation-based bodily processes to stop, which includes the formation of new limbs and even the maintenance of the plasma that gives energy to their body. If an antivenoms is not administered within minutes, an asphyxiation-like process will occur in the body followed by the dissipation of the plasma. No longer able to make new plasma it will die, but modern medicine is able to replace this plasma, but if this lack of energy damaged the silicon brain then the creature is dead. And, lastly, the Steel-buds. A plant/fungus-like thing, it consumes the waste of other metalloid life forms and converts it into metal. This system is how metal is recycled from being consumed by others and returned to metal, a similar system to plants breathing carbon dioxide for animals to breath into oxygen and vice versa. Metal bulbs, most of which have unique survival mechanisms; some have a venom the same as that of the Titanium Terrors, others have the ability to emit a massive amount of oxygen, some even have the ability to electrically charge themselves, shock an individual into being misshapen or confused. Their ecosystem relies on these Steel-Bulbs, so the least dangerous of them are typically cultivated and treated as 'junk yards', fed by the waste of Karthenon.

Traits & Abilities

- Composed of metal, with enhanced sight and complete deafness.

- Communicate via body language and emission of light.

-Able to soder metal at room temp with physical contact, reshaping the metal via excitement from solid to liquid.

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Technology

- Karthian Metallurgy