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.
History
A longer history of the species.
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).
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.
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 Titans, 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 Titans 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 Titans, 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 sublimation from solid to liquid.