Etty

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Tortanick
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Etty

#1 Post by Tortanick »

Pithy Summery: The Etty are a race of uplifted immobile plants who use cybernetic technology to overcome this limitation. They're pretty introverted emotionally but also a trading race. They work well as either a major or a minor race.

---- Original Post ---- Not too sure about the history.

Etty pronounced “Et-tey”

“Eat pollen and Die!” - Traditional etty battle-cry, note that etty pollen is not, and cannot be used as a weapon.

Homeworld: Taitoia, A large desert planet orbiting a yellow star, its atmosphere is 75% Carbon Dioxide with 20% oxygen, 10% nitrogen and 5% other. What little life there is tends to be tough, versatile and aggressive. plenty of sunlight and carbon dioxide are the etty's most important features in a planet. Good soil is healthy and luxurious but not required.

The etty evolved in small communities each surrounding a Oasis, soil quality was low and water was limited so they learnt to cope.

The Etty are a Pre fall race, having been uplifted by one of the races under Orion rule (I will say orions simply because it helps to have a name but they weren't actually the orions). They had good trading relationships with many of the races and were officially part of the club although they were a minor race who politely kept to themselves when not trading.

Reason for leaving their homeworld: They just wanted a small piece of space to call their own.

Physiology:

Etty are an unnaturally evolved race of intelligent plants. They resemble rosemary and can grow up to half a meter in length however unlike rosemary etty never flower. The Etty have a central brain found in a large bulb that's kept below the surface.

Etty have very strong sent witch they can consciously vary at will, this evolutionary adoption allowed them to protect themselves from plant eaters by mimicking the sent of greater predators, they also sense the world through a powerful sense of smell.

Until their uplift the etty had very limited reasoning ability, roughly on the level of a monkey's, this allowed them to work out what sent would protect them from what.

Naturally an etty is completely immobile and can only move if painfully dug out and carried.

The average lifespan of an Etty is 20-25 years, given high quality soil a good atmosphere and a strong sun they can live as long as 40 years. The prime limitation of an Etty's lifespan is its brain witch ages far faster than the body, as such etty's are physically healthy to the end but may go senile or suffer from other age related mental issues.

History:

The Etty survived comfortably for many years as a pre-sentient race of plants, they weren't going anywhere but they didn't care. Then they were discovered by the orions on a routine survey mission. Discovering that despite being plants the etty had brains the orions took many of them home for study, among other experiments some seeds were genetically modified to full intelligence to see if a plant brain could match an animal brain.

As part of the experiment the test subjects were taught a sent based language and maths, science and literature and their abilities were measured, the etty scored well. However one scientist, short on cash and needing a present for his wife was intrigued by the etty's natural ability to control their sent, he went to the laboratory next door that did research and development for a popular brand of perfume and asked a friend for a few drops of perfume, he took this back to his lab and asked an etty to duplicate it as a favour, thus acquiring a bottle of expensive perfume for nothing, pleasing his wife and account book no end.

In return for the original sample drops the scientist's friend asked to see why they were needed, upon seeing the etty and its ability to work with sent he became highly excited, a day later he returned with a detailed description of the perfume they were trying to create, in the hope that the etty would create a sample, with the ability to smell the target research should be faster and more efficient. Unfortunately the higher ups wondered weather it might not be more efficient to simply replace research, development and production with etty labour. After one expensive lunch with the team studying etty the executives were able to meet with the plants. Orion labour laws required that the etty were offered a good wage rather than abused for their trusting and friendly nature so the deal was proposed: The Orions would uplift the entire etty race and teach them all the language, in return the etty would manufacture a large amount of exquisite perfumes. The etty agreed.

In the years that followed the etty became known as the finest source of perfumes there was, able to quickly create any sent given its description. Many species came to Taitoia purchasing large supplies of perfume, the etty became rich on the produce of trade, until a plan of generations was finally ready, a race known for honourable trade and high quality products landed on Taitoia to shocked by a new development, for the first time ever the etty wanted to purchase. The entire wealth of generations was spent on one massive order, the etty paid for the construction of cities, enough technology to make a self sustaining industrial civilisation as well as commissioning the creation of a bio-tech interface tailored to their physiology and an army of simple robots that they could connect themselves to, as well as help getting themselves into the robots. Within a few years the dream of generations was forfilled, the etty had freedom of movement.

It took quite a while, but the etty became a stable industrial civilisation, apart from that not much changed, the etty were much happier, they expanded a bit and colonised a few planets, but in the wider galaxy they remained a small player content with their life who kept to themselves, their chief export was still perfume much to the relief of the rich and vain across the galaxy.

Robot Bodies:

Etty robot bodies serve as legs, eyes, ears and hands, etty are totally dependant on them.

The trational etty body consists of a bowl to contain the etty, the bottom of the bowl contains a socket that connects to the rest of the body allowing the etty to move from one body to another without needing to painfully uproot themselves. The robot form itself highly varied based on its function and the prefrances of the etty using it. However specialised tasks may call for specialised shapes, fighter craft for example are technically robot bodies but they look like a normal fighter craft. The ground troupes use 12 foot war machines for bodies witch they can control with the same skill as a human controls his biological body. Enemy generals often find them selves hurriedly changing their stratagy when he first sees the etty dive for cover.

(Etty solderer bodies look like the gorilla from Machines you can see a screen shot here http://www.freewebs.com/kaboutertwo/ the gorilla appears in the foreground of the second screenshot, and in the targeting reticule in the third. If you make the upper body and legs proportional, Replace the right fist with a gun, remove the shoulder rocket launchers and turn those vertical yellow strips in the third screenshot into circular flood lights and you have a good idea what the etty ground troops look like)

An etty's robot body will normally have the ability to interface with other etty technology allowing that too to be controlled mentally.

Culture:

The natural limitations of plants has had a profound effect on the cultural evolution of the etty. Their exceeding politeness is one example. In history etty couldn't move, so they were stuck with their neighbours for life, as a result the etty learned to avoid making enemies or forever forfeit peace and quiet, although this means they do tend to keep to themselves.

Another example is their strict honouring of all contracts and agreements, the etty had to become traders if they ever hoped to buy their way past their evolutionary limitations, since they were in a position of absolute weakness this meant that they had no choice but to become highly honourable in trade and stick to dealing with those who felt the same. An etty who cheats another in an agreement will find few willing to deal with him for years after the event. The etty are also insulted by the concept of “small print”

Modern etty culture is very clean and civil, with low crime and most people being kind and curtious to each other, but very withdrawn. Since etty still feel they have to get along they never got into competitive passtimes like sport and instead favour works of fiction, fine music and art, humour is also liked but requires great skill because of a self imposed need to not attack people.

Movement has become very important to individual etty, they remain well aware they are dependant on artificial means for movement and fear that technology will fail them. Since nothing is perfect this occasionally happens, the unlucky etty involved usually becomes gloomy and withdrawn, a few etty have been known to suffer massive panics becoming violent. Once the robotic body is restored recovery is common but full recovery is rare, those who have suffered a through the loss of a robot body normally show increased nervousness and a compulsive habit of checking their body for problems. Interestingly those who go from a highly manoeuvrable body like a fighter craft to a drastically less manoeuvrable body often suffer the same symptoms of gloominess but almost never panics, unlike those who suffered a total loss of movement recovery is full and quick when they return to a highly manoeuvrable body, perhaps because it is a deliberate body switch rather than a body failure.

Religion

As a newly uplifted race with no mythology of their own the etty were subjected to a missionary free for all in their first years. Representatives of every major church in the galaxy and quite a few minor ones arrived to preach their beliefs. As a result etty have a very wide array of varying religions and the domiment faith varies by region.

Like most scientifically advanced civilisations it is more common than not for Etty to have some amount of doubts about the truth of religion.

Government:

Etty government is a true democracy, new laws and governmental acts are proposed by petitions, once a petition gets enough signatures all who are affected by it, based on where one lives and/or works, get a vote for every option offered by the partitioner, if 50%+1 person vote yes then the most popular option is passed into law. A petition can say anything and will still get voted on and implemented if passed, even if it's in direct contradiction of the laws of physics, although only a very few infamous religious petitions have ever been that stupid and passed. Despite democracy the public remains largely uninterested in politics, voter turnout is low and normally involves little background reading.

Supporting the will of the people is a vast civil service covering that implements and administers the various laws and bills passed. The service has more power than they really should, they have full control over their own recruitment are willing to “interpret” a petition, the only external checks on their power and decisions happens after the press publishes particularly bad stories about them. Fortunately for the Etty while the Civil service contains a strong Old Boy's culture, and its fair share of people attempting to profit from their involvement, most will make decisions for the common good when their ulterior motives don't conflict.

Perhaps even more powerful than the civil servants are the etty press with their ability to mould popular opinion, with enough news coverage a the press can increase the truthyness of a problem, real or otherwise and gather the people behind a petition.

Despite this both the press and the civil service are drastically limited in their use of their power. This is historic and nature and goes back to the founders of journalism who being idealistic used their position as control of the press to limit political lobbying and create strong anti-monopoly laws that are still in force. the anti monopoly laws mean there are a lot of newspapers that can't excessive the power of the press because they rarely unite. The civil service isn't too tempted because lobbyists are weak, and the civil service cannot take too many liberties with the will of the people because there are too many newspapers for them to come to an agreement with all of them.


Gameplay effects:

Etty are solarvores, however their bodies require fuel and maintenance, the primary fuel is biofuels from farming while the ware and tear requires minerals to be fixed. Without enough food or minerals the robot bodies will be powered down, unlike the Chato'matou'Gormosk who would turn research in such a situation the etty are to upset to do any work, what's more a lack of fuel or minerals causes a moral penalty as etty fear they may be next.

Since the bodies are normally in good condition, just lacking a part or unfueled they can be instantly reactivated once fuel and mineral supplies recover.


Bonuses:

Their plant heritage has given them a bonus in:

Diplomacy: The neighbours are going to be nearby for a long time, they had to learn to get along or suffer.

Trading: It was the honour system or nothing, they are trustworthy and fair to deal with so people trust etty traders. They still make the best perfume.


Their Ability to bio-tech interface and use of robotic bodies has given them the following advantages:

Ship attack: their aiming is legendary.

Fighter control: they are the fighter, and a skilled pilot is better compared to a martial artist than a pilot.

Ground combat and ship boarding, the standard ground unit is a 12 foot robot with fine motor control.

However they have the following disadvantages:

Farming: because they farm for fuel the etty are a lot more lax about quality than races who eat their food, this means that the etty never learnt to farm as well as other species. Learning to farm much later in their civilisations development also means they started with advanced technology and never learnt the tribal secrets of farming, such as using another plant to protect against insects rather than pesticides.

Terraforming: A knock on effect from never doing old style farming, they never got the early experience in ecology.

Manufacturing: they don't actually have a real penalty, this is just to represent that they split manufacturing between the build que and new bodies.

Espionage, its kind of easy to detect a robot body compared to an organic one.

ship design outline
Etty ships are very tall and not particularly wide, Etty go for a mild Gothic look. (A bit of trivia, If Etty ships can land they rotate 90 degrees when they land so the engines face down)

The Etty are a peaceful race and even their warships are designed with peacetime in mind, (probably a bad idea, but that's what they do), rather than scaring their enemies Etty ships are designed to reassure their own civilians and any visiting merchants; looking non-threatening is an explicit design goal, rather than "scary" they've gone for "strong" and "noble". Weapons are hidden.

Colours: the Etty go mainly for black (polished, not dark), with a highlight of bright, non-metalic colours. (I'm very bad at choosing colours so if it dosn't work ignore it)

possible inspiration for the general shape of an Etty ship can be found at
http://www.ic-games.co.uk/images/games/79/box.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/20 ... bed007.jpg

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