Tlecians

Tlecians
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Summary
The tlecians are a tall, vaguely humanoid people who evolved on the world of Haylca located at the outer edge of the Sagittarius Arm. They are one of the original species that formed the Coalition. The tlecians are expert cyberneticists who have, in a decision made long before they knew of the denazra, integrated a wide range of neural implants into their culture so thoroughly that they have become entirely dependent on them. They live within a sort of decentralized hive mind which they call “the Chime”. Their government and economy is based on local decisions at a community level, but they have no currency; all simply give and take as necessary.

The tlecians are a peaceful people, having learned long ago the value of calm contemplation and cooperation in overcoming problems. Their world’s notorious lethality encouraged careful planning as well as served to keep their population low. Tlecians have evolved accordingly, enjoying communication with one another but finding dense city living to be overwhelming. When population totals in an area grow too large, a subset of the settlement will migrate elsewhere. This trait also led to a great deal of enthusiasm amongst the tlecians for even long periods of travel in space, provided they are accompanied by a friend or family group.

While tlecians can feel overwhelmed by proximity with too many other individuals, they regularly access and merge with the greater Chime to exchange ideas and emotions. Once separated from the Chime on Haylca for an extended period of time, a tlecian can quickly become culturally out of touch with the rest of their species. Those tlecians who travel in space for long periods of time, most commonly individuals on first contact expeditions, typically take up residence on other worlds or in small orbital communities. There are over a hundred of these permanent settlements scattered throughout Coalition space, making the tlecians the most widely scattered and most frequently encountered “alien” in the known galaxy.

Biology
The planet Haylca, though of relative size to earth, is much less dense and has a much lower gravitational pull. It sits at the very edge of the system’s habitable zone. The atmosphere is arid but generally cool, but temperatures vary widely by region. Haylca is dominated by dozens of vast oceans, with many smaller landmasses dispersed across the surface. Climate varies widely across the planet, with many islands covered in thick, dense jungle while others boast large plains of flowers and other colorful plants. Regions of icy tundra near the poles are offset by harsh deserts with sand often stained red or black. The one thing common across the entire planet is that most of the plants and animals in every environment use toxins or poisons in one fashion or another. Even the black sands of the northern deserts can ooze a potent and fast acting neurotoxin when mixed with water. Without natural defenses and a learned abundance of caution, the tlecians would never have survived.

The tlecians originally evolved in water and didn’t emerge from the wide oceans until comparatively late in their species’ development. The tlecians can regulate and absorb most needed chemicals directly through their skin, whether in water or air. This proved to be an immensely useful evolutionary advantage on Haylca, as a healthy tlecian can filter out airborne toxins and many other poisonous substances. A tlecian’s skin is actually almost translucent at birth, but will usually gain a blue or purple tint after a few decades of living in any environment with too many impurities. Tlecians can also sense electric phenomenon, including that given off by most living creatures, through their skin. As a result, they are rarely surprised.

While the tlecians are a gendered race, they are capable of changing their own gender through a harmless and easily repeatable natural biological process. Historically, this would occur naturally in any community that had a gender imbalance. In present times, an individual tlecian can use easily available supplements to activate the process at will. However, despite this ability to change gender, the vast majority of tlecians are born with the raw materials to produce only one to three offspring over the course of their entire life and this only within a limited window of time.

A healthy tlecian can expect to live well over 100 years. They reach physical maturity slowly, but they receive their first implants and enter the Chime shortly after they learn to walk. While the greater Chime benefits from younger voices and fresh ideas, the access to so many mentors and information means that tlecian children reach emotional maturity much faster than those of other species.

Tlecians stand at around 1.5 meters tall and rely on a large collection of tightly woven ligaments, covered in muscle, in order to move around. When they still inhabited the ocean they could easily grow to 3 meters or longer, but since moving to land they have shrunk significantly. They have few joints; their limbs simply bend and twist. Tlecians have long, wiry arms, each ending in four long and flexible fingers. Their feet boast four sturdy webbed toes. Tlecians are comfortable on low gravity worlds, but their biology is ill-suited for other environments. When it is absolutely necessary to visit a higher gravity world, the tlecians typically wear long robes to cover a supportive exoskeleton that allows them to stay upright.

While tlecians grow no hair or fur, their other facial features are fairly humanoid. They have perfectly round eyes with two sets of eyelids, though these inner lids are slowly starting to thin out and, in some rare cases, retract. The tlecians view this phenomenon as evolution in action rather than as a birth defect and do not persecute those so afflicted. Their straight, rounded noses don’t protrude far from the rest of their face and, without augmentation, are not particularly strong. They have two symmetrical pads on the sides of their head that allow to process sounds but lack external ears. Their mouths are narrow slits that, when their flat lips are closed, are very difficult to see. Tlecians frequently come across as cold or emotionless to other species because of the inexpressive nature of their faces. Socially, the tlecians also rarely bother with grandiose displays of emotion, as those connected to the Chime can feel the actual emotions at play within any nearby individual.

History
The tlecians began as an evolutionary offshoot of a very intelligent oceanic organism. The hostile environment forced these newly land going creatures to adapt quickly or be destroyed. They quickly harnessed tools and developed incredibly strict rules and traditions governing cooperation and peaceful coexistence. The tlecians thrived and spread, always at war with their planet but almost never fighting amongst themselves. The tlecians generally prefer retreat to confrontation, although they have acted ruthlessly in the past against common enemies.

Even the tlecians’ aquatic ancestors were a curious and highly intelligent species. Their traits allowed the tlecians to cautiously and methodically develop efficient ways to survive and then thrive. Due to Haylca’s massive oceans, most tlecian communities made use of watercraft to travel, trade, and explore. This curiosity and propensity for exploration led them across the entire globe. Having all gone through similar hardships and facing continuous threats from their own ecosystem, the tlecians avoided the sort of massive wars that have plagued so many other species. The tlecians were forced to work together to survive on a daily basis.

Villages became towns which became cities boasting marvelous architecture and splendor. The healing arts have always been a favored and heavily subsidized field, and Tlecian medicine is generally excellent as a result. Population levels did begin to stabilize and grow, but the true taming of Haylca happened very late in the tlecians’ history.

When a species defeats all immediate threats to their survival, the result is typically brutal infighting and wars. Thankfully, tlecian science had great successes in the field of cybernetics. Neural implants became increasingly common and were accepted eagerly in societies built on expertise and intricate cooperative endeavors. These implants allowed for instantaneous communication between individuals, as well as the exchange of emotional data and memories. They also provided access to a massive network of facts, best practices, and entertainment. Over many years, the tlecians became increasingly dependent on the ever advancing implants, even as bonds and cultural exchanges between distant communities skyrocketed. The network began to be called the Chime by its users and the structure of society made participation near mandatory.

While individual tlecians do have their own identities, they usually broadcast all of their feelings and thoughts into the Chime. These thoughts and emotions mingle, and every tlecian understands each other with perfect empathy. This sort of communication can be overwhelming, so each city maintains their own part of the Chime, only allowing direct communication between implants in the same local area. The tlecians continue to prefer smaller communities, only joining the greater Chime for limited periods in order to share information or an experience with the greater whole.

Embracing cybernetic enhancement allowed the tlecians to thrive culturally and technologically. Establishing communities in orbit and throughout the rest of their solar system was not an overwhelming challenge. The tlecians turned outward from the Chime, thousands of years of peaceful cooperation encouraging them to seek out evidence of other life in the universe. But they did not forget the lethal lessons that Haylca had taught them. The tlecians set up listening posts and vast observational arrays, but they broadcast no messages and sent out no probes. Over dozens of years, they gathered information on thousands of nearby solar systems and uncovered proof of the existence of multiple different technologically advanced species. They did not, however, attempt to make contact.

The tlecians expanded off world, their drive to explore and need for small communities encouraging migration. They worked hard to develop the complicated, and classified, technology behind the Coalition gate network. At first, though, they only sought to link their own communities with one another. It was shortly after the first interstellar link was created that the Tlecians learned of the Denazra.

Due to the time lag inherent in observation of distant star systems, the tlecians did not learn of the denazra’s campaign until many hundreds years after the machines first annexed an observable world. The brief burst of messages, data, and warnings from the doomed species provided the tlecians with an opportunity to organize a defense. In the ensuing decades, the tlecians have cautiously reached out to compatible seeming species in dozens of different star systems. These uplift campaigns have met with varying levels of success. Intelligent species usually self-destruct or descend into hedonistic virtual realities. Frequently, tlecian gate expeditions have found a dead or dying civilization waiting for them instead of a helpful ally. But, over time, the tlecians improved their methods and timing. While the denazra have occupied at least 17 different garden worlds since the tlecians began monitoring their activities, the Coalition’s gate network and list of allies have grown as well. The Coalition has lost half a dozen member species to denazra attacks, but the alliance’s manufacturing capacity and available military assets has never been as strong as it is now. Unable to fight the denazra directly, as evidenced by the disastrous first contact between tlecian military craft and the machine fleets, the tlecians have focused on empowering other species and weaving them together into an alliance capable of challenging their common foe. Tlecian technology, resources, and diplomacy lie at the heart of the Coalition’s ability to resist.

Culture
The adoption of neural implants, more than any other single factor, caused the most dramatic changes and shifts in Tlecian culture. Notably, the Tlecians have almost entirely done away with their own languages, excepting the small ambassadorial groups that travel to alien stars. Communicating verbally with others who can think and feel along with you is unnecessary. There are a few universities with language programs that maintain rigorous educational standards designed to preserve a small subset of the old tongues. Most of those who participate in the program attend out of interest in future service as explorers, politicians or ambassadors. As a result, most of the tlecians that other species encounter are actually members of a tiny minority with a particular skillset that most of their own people think is archaic. The tlecians have yet to find a reliable way to fully translate the signals of the Chime into understandable audio input for even their own translator devices.

The decision to study language and pursue such a profession is arguably one of the biggest sacrifices a young tlecian can make. Because of the limited range of the neural implants and the rapidly changing culture of the Chime, leaving one’s home planet for even a few months can feel like being gone for decades. These individuals who give up their family and life to serve the greater good of the species are seen as heroes. The Chime has allowed the tlecians to create a culture in which all members of a city are seen as one large family and even distant strangers become fast friends within seconds of interacting for the first time. Every child is a child of the Chime. When a parent introduces their biological offspring to the Chime the newcomer is immediately accepted into a much larger family. As a result, even to those separated from the Chime, reintegration is usually fairly easy.

As a result of this instantaneous communication and perfect empathy, tlecian communities are uniformly harmonious and peaceful places. Lying and deceit is unheard of. While it is possible for an individual to withhold information, this withholding will instantly be seen and recognized by every other tlecian within range. Having dozens of close friends who can instantly understand not only your darkest thoughts but also the rationale behind them takes away the need to twist the truth. The tlecians have adapted to this new reality over many years. One of the most difficult things for tlecians to learn is how to interact with other species that regularly lie and use trickery when interacting with others. On extremely rare occasions, a tlecian who journeys to another world has adapted too well and joined in, being deceitful and exploiting others. The cure for such behavior is simple and effective: removal from all positions of power and an extended vacation reintegrating with the Chime.

The tlecians have also created what is largely considered to be the galaxy’s finest music. Tlecians are known for their concert halls and it is an indescribable experience to be present during even an amateur performance. The tlecian attendees of a concert disconnect from the greater Chime and instead connect to all of the other attendees and musicians. As their thoughts mingle in a beautiful harmony of colors, emotions, and ideas, trained musicians dispersed throughout the room slowly introduce audible melodies that complement the ongoing exchange. This music, combined with the emotional bonds formed amongst the audience and performers, culminates in a glorious chorus more intricate and beautiful than any play or concerto.

Religion
Tlecians have no true organized religion or surviving creations stories, but their culture is replete with spiritualists and philosophers. While acknowledging its artificial nature, most tlecians hold that the Chime itself is a higher plane of existence. It elevates their minds to a purely spiritual level and allows their souls to experience the songs of the universe and the stars directly. When a voice is silenced their name is sung in a huge chorus within the Chime until all the thoughts and memories of that individual are released into the spiritual plane. They are never thought of again, unless in a strictly practical sense, after that moment. With all of the component thoughts and feelings of a deceased individual released at once by those they held dearest, they will continue to live on. After death, these spirits are widely believed to tend the universal order, helping to sing a larger song of the spiraling galactic arms, whirling planets, dying suns and even other universes.

Economy
Tlecians give and take as necessary, without question or ulterior motive. What is needed is freely given without question and each only takes what they need from others and the community, with perfect understanding of every individual’s needs. There is no currency or bartering, all do their jobs happily and freely in service to the community. When someone is hungry, in pain, or suffering the entire Chime is thrown into discord, as all experience the victim’s pain. Alleviating pain and suffering is second nature to the tlecians, although they sometimes fail to recognize its symptoms in other species.

The tlecians do maintain a large reserve of chantarian credits, but they typically just give their technology or services directly to the governments of their Coalition allies and rely on those same governments to pay for anything that the tlecians might require at a future date and time. As tlecian technology is second to none, and they maintain a monopoly on the interstellar gates, they rarely have any difficulty acquiring what they need. The tlecians also learned, long ago, that most species appreciate an ally who doesn’t need much help. They primarily try to tend to their own affairs without relying on the largesse of others.

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Language
The tlecians maintain a small set of official languages for use with other species. Tlecians typically learn a language, with help from a wide array of advanced cybernetic implants, and speak directly with another species rather than ask them to engage in the more laborious task of learning a new and alien language. The vast majority of tlecian communication occurs, of course, non verbally.

Military
The tlecian military is the most advanced and one of the largest in Coalition space. While the tlecians freely help their allies develop powerful ships and military technology, it is well known that they kept their prototypes and most advanced technology for themselves. While the tlecians have repeatedly explained their testing procedures and the difficulty of adapting new inventions for use by widely varied alien species, they have never been able to overcome the perception that they are keeping their best equipment to themselves. Furthermore, the ability of a tlecian crew to immediately communicate with one another and coordinate even very complicated activities is extremely potent. In the end, there is undeniable strategic value in this technological disparity. While the tlecians rarely try to dominate or intimidate others, their military might is always a factor in negotiations and Coalition politics.

Tlecian technological superiority is also used to good effect when inducting new members into the Coalition. A tlecian gate expedition or uplift fleet always has the upper hand militarily, which allows them the relative freedom to use diplomacy and charity without fear of a panicked attack by a native species.

The tlecians greatest weakness, however, lies in their total inability to confront the denazra. Even with their advanced technology, the tlecians have never been able to stop the denazra from eventually insinuating their way into their neural links and corrupting the Chime. Early reports, back from the early wars of the campaign against the denazra, indicate that an afflicted tlecian can be effectively lobotomized remotely. Coupled with the denazra’s ability to co-opt and overwhelm even advanced artificial intelligence has neutered the ability of the tlecian fleet to be of much use in critical engagements.

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Notable Planets
Haylca – The home of the tlecians and the Chime. Haylca is a beautiful garden world, well preserved and pristine, but it also boasts some of the most poisonous and lethal organisms in Coalition space. Fortunately, there are few species with the capability to outright kill off-worlders. Despite the dangers, Haylca is a tourist destination for countless individuals all over the galaxy and is the premier center of scientific innovation in the galaxy. The chantar maintain experimental labs in Haylca orbit, just so that they can immediately take advantage of the new developments amongst the tlecians. Beyond them, there are thousands of artificial stations strewn all throughout the system and the tlecians make wide use of wirelessly controlled drones to exploit every available resource in their solar system.

Aso – This colony is an old one, well settled and developed. It has a reputation of a somewhat rebellious culture amongst the tlecians. It is said that the applied sciences were mastered on Haylca, but the brilliant inventions come from Aso. By virtue of their (relative) distance from the main Chime, this large body of tlecian colonists have a culture of thinking a little outside the settled and orthodoxy. As is common amongst the tlecians, these differences are celebrated amongst the people. Information and people cycle endlessly between Aso and the homeworld and the two usually work harmoniously.

Leno – The most recent tlecian colony, the tlecians have recently undertaken major efforts to prepare the planet for expanded future settlement. Located out along the Orion Spur near Kral and Sana, the tlecians have been focusing much of their civilian fleet in transferring equipment and some supervisory goods to the planet. Environmental engineering efforts are nearing completion, in record time, and a number of useful native species have been introduced in a controlled manner to help stabilize the ecosystem.

The Scattered - tlecians maintain hundreds of small communities scattered around the galaxy. Each group forms its own subculture, often influenced by its interactions with whatever native species they interact with the most. These groups are widely varied, but almost engage in frequent cultural exchanges with the homeworld in order to stay current with new developments and events.