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Description

The Saramesh are an avian sentient native to the dry and barren world of Sarathin. They are flight-capable, with a proud warrior culture.

Quick facts about them...

Their wingspan averages twice their height.

They can reach airspeeds of around 200mph in a straight line, 300 in a dive.

They can stay airborne for hours without rest.

The feathers of the male's are a light, sandy beige, but the female's display vibrant and colorful two-tone patterns.

They use their feet as we would use hands to manipulate and grasp most objects.

They are naturally attracted to the color purple, hence the abundance of amethyst jewels in decorations.

They do not wear undergarments, because their feathers cover any "vulnerable" areas from the elements.

Males and females alike use wrap-like robes as common wear, with jeweled armor as battle wear.

Males will only fight males, and females will only fight females.

Their world, Sarathin, was not always a sandy wasteland. It was once a lush jungle as recent as 10,000 years in the past. No one knows why it dried up.

They use their head crests like a plane would use its rudder, and their webbed tails as a plane would its elevator.

In spite of their height, they are very lightweight - an average adult male weighs in at a mere 110lbs.

Females speak rarely, if ever at all. Some will go their entire lives without ever using their voice once.

Their beak differences are a reflection of the different dietary needs of males and females.

They are cold-blooded.

They are capable of inbreeding without any negative side effects to offspring.

They breed and mature incredibly quickly, small populations booming into thousands in merely a decade.

They do not have concepts of intimate, life-long partners as most sentients do.

Because of no natural outside threats, they have no concept of self-preservation as an individual or group. The constant killing of each other is how their population naturally keeps itself in balance.

Cannibalism is commonplace among them.

These latter three points were what aided in the rise of one of the worst mistakes in all HNT history - the War of Sarathin.

The War of Sarathin:

The War of Sarathin was a decade and a half long conflict between the HNT and the Saramesh's home planetary system, wrought by misunderstanding, internal Angorvosen corruption, and the Saramesh's incapability to fear or hate death.

It started seven centuries after the HNT's foundation, where the Sarathin system was discovered. Naturally to the HNT's purpose, whereupon discovering FTL-capable sentients, they would try to open friendly relations. The Saramesh, however, had a very different way of perceiving. The ambassador to the Saramesh world expressed revulsion as the "promiscuity" and open murder, seeing Saramesh mating and being slaughtered right before his eyes in the streets with a most surreal, casual apathy; where two were mating, two were killing each other not but a few feet away at times. To the Saramesh, this was just everyday life - to kill or be killed, and if to be killed, then to at least make offspring before it happened.

The Saramesh they met with was also said to have made some disturbing remarks about the Klannphayar ambassador's species, along the lines of "being curious what they taste like."

The ambassador returned, utterly horrified by what he saw, and feeling they were a threat since they were an FTL-capable space fairing civilization, demanded the commander in charge of the local fleet to begin purging the entire population. The commander sympathized, being a friend of the ambassador, but feeling this was such a unique situation, he contacted the HNT higher command as well. He told them exactly what the ambassador told him, which led to an exaggerated image of the Saramesh, painting them as demonic monsters beyond any hope of salvation. In reality, it was just the natural evolution of the Saramesh that made them this way...but of course, this was not known.

War was authorized by the higher command almost immediately, without Lahgtah himself ever seeing or hearing anything about it. The reason it was obscured from him was because the leaders of the Angorvosen at the time saw him as too naive, and feared he might go investigate the matter in person and get himself killed. Thus they kept their king in the dark about the whole matter.

The Angorvosen arrived in a relatively small invasion force at first. Their lightning-quick invasion tactics took the outer worlds by surprise, and they fell within a matter of weeks, but as they closed in on Sarathin itself, the Saramesh had already adapted. The invasion ground to a grueling pace, until it finally reached a stalemate as the Saramesh fought back in a way the HNT never thought possible. Their anti-demonic weapons and methods were ineffective against mortal beings, forcing them to resort to more traditional symmetrical warfare tactics.

Both sides dug in, yet no matter how many Saramesh the HNT armies killed, the Saramesh showed zero signs of failing morale. In fact, the Saramesh even seemed to enjoy it, laughing heartily as they died and killed as if the war was a game.

The HNT soldiers, however, found their morale crushed by these natural psychopaths as the stalemate dragged on. It did not matter how many more reinforcements were pulled - what started as a small invasion fleet became a full armada - the Saramesh kept on, swarming the skies and ground alike, slicing with their thumb blades, raking with their talons, and blasting with solar fusion cannons. Because of the Saramesh's instincts, the HNT soldiers could not simply give up either; they went from fighting a war under orders, to killing for the sake of survival. The Saramesh did not make prisoners from those who surrendered, simply killing them, snatching up their bodies, and eating them.

Eventually, an Angel's Grace Dreadnought was pulled into the fray. Because the troops on the ground of Sarathin could not retreat, it could not simply use its wrath cannon to obliterate the planet. Instead, heeding the discovery that the Saramesh are cold-blooded, the Dreadnought maneuvered itself between the Sun and Sarathin, casting its entire surface in a perpetual midnight.

The planet gradually cooled until it eventually started to freeze, the Saramesh attacks slowed, and the HNT started to take ground once again. The Saramesh still did not give up, however, taking the fighting to their warmer cities, staying in the geothermal-warmed caverns and caves carved in the mountains. One who was so cold he could not fight was questioned by an HNT officer why they didn't just give up, and though clearly suffering the Saramesh seemed to just not understand the notion before dying.

It was not until Lahgtah required the Dreadnought that had been summoned that he finally got hint that something was awry. He discovered, upon contacting the Dreadnought's captain and questioning where it was, that the whole operation was obscured from him. The captain said that he was told Lahgtah was informed, but Lahgtah was not; the captain, just like so many reinforcements, were lied to. So many under the impression that Lahgtah authorized this genocide.

Lahgtah himself made haste to the Sarathin system, boarding the Dreadnought and wishing to know everything there was to know about the Saramesh. He saw not demonic monsters through the old spy footage from before the war, but sentients who simply evolved different instincts that they could not be held accountable for; blaming them for who and what they were would've been like faulting a fish for being unable to climb a tree. They did not have a fondness for bloodshed or passionless, rampant, and casual mating, but were simply apathetic towards it. He learned that they were a highly ritual-oriented society, with families often challenging right-of-rule over the planet via duels between patriarchs. Lahgtah, in a sense, was the patriarch of the HNT, so he figured that perhaps he could end this war one way or another through such a duel.

He went down to the now-frozen surface of Sarathin and marched towards their center of leadership alone. Others attacked him, but HNT soldiers were under his direct order to not attack. Lahgtah simply stopped them with a simple, booming request - to duel their "father" for control. The weakened Saramesh organized the duel, the patriarch showing himself at last; in a matter of minutes and several blade clashes later, the duel was done. The patriarch's severed head lied at Lahgtah's feet, and just like that...the war was over.

The Saramesh immediately recognized Lahgtah as their king, but after all the genocide inflicted upon the Saramesh, Lahgtah rejected his right of rule over them. His first and only act of power over them was reinstating their own independence, and requesting they allow the HNT soldiers to leave this system forever, immediately casting down his crown over them as soon as he received it. The HNT left Sarathin, a broken people that could've been a valuable asset to them: all wasted out of a misunderstanding.

It all went to prove that alien life is just that: alien. Two different aliens may be sentient and sapient, but in such different ways that render them incomprehensible to each other. It went to show that evil is not so easy to see, for evil requires intent. For the Saramesh and all their killing and promiscuity, it was not done out of a lust for it, but because it was just what they were...and that was all there was to it.

In the aftermath of the war, the commanders who kept this whole operation secret from Lahgtah, orchestrating this genocide, were exiled. The only interactions the HNT ever had again with Saramesh controlled space were small-scale scientific ones, along with Lahgtah himself making private journeys to learn more about them while they would learn about his people as well.

The Saramesh were never among the HNT sovereignty, but some Saramesh volunteered themselves as soldiers in the HNT. Being either survivors or descendants or survivors, the Saramesh did not see the war as a tragedy, but rather admired the HNT for how fiercely they fought and what "supremacy" they displayed. Some even regretted the fighting stopping at all, seeing dying by another's hand as a death unquestioningly deserved and honored, no matter the cause. This reckless lack of self-preservation, as well as flight capabilities, renders these volunteers as lethal shock troops who gladly embark on missions no other would be willing.

On the other hand, many of the more "proud" Saramesh hold resentment for the HNT because of their ideals and tenants of faith being incompatible with the Saramesh way of life, seeming as backwards to them as their own lifestyle seemed backwards to the ambassador so long ago. Some of these Saramesh went off to the Fringe, becoming murderous outlaws, henchmen, or more infamously, owners of gladiatorial tournaments given their apathy towards bloodshed.

The Saramesh culture as a whole remains as it has always been: constant warring between families, ruling families changing with the seasons: the cycle of life and death changing as rapidly as the days of the week upon their world. It is a system most now avoid, as the battles often reach the space around the planets as well in their solar sail-galleons, and the Saramesh hold no pity for those foolish enough to get caught in the crossfire.

Description

The Saramesh are an avian sentient native to the dry and barren world of Sarathin. They are flight-capable, with a proud warrior culture.

Quick facts about them...

Their wingspan averages twice their height.

They can reach airspeeds of around 200mph in a straight line, 300 in a dive.

They can stay airborne for hours without rest.

The feathers of the male's are a light, sandy beige, but the female's display vibrant and colorful two-tone patterns.

They use their feet as we would use hands to manipulate and grasp most objects.

They are naturally attracted to the color purple, hence the abundance of amethyst jewels in decorations.

They do not wear undergarments, because their feathers cover any "vulnerable" areas from the elements.

Males and females alike use wrap-like robes as common wear, with jeweled armor as battle wear.

Males will only fight males, and females will only fight females.

Their world, Sarathin, was not always a sandy wasteland. It was once a lush jungle as recent as 10,000 years in the past. No one knows why it dried up.

They use their head crests like a plane would use its rudder, and their webbed tails as a plane would its elevator.

In spite of their height, they are very lightweight - an average adult male weighs in at a mere 110lbs.

Females speak rarely, if ever at all. Some will go their entire lives without ever using their voice once.

Their beak differences are a reflection of the different dietary needs of males and females.

They are cold-blooded.

They are capable of inbreeding without any negative side effects to offspring.

They breed and mature incredibly quickly, small populations booming into thousands in merely a decade.

They do not have concepts of intimate, life-long partners as most sentients do.

Because of no natural outside threats, they have no concept of self-preservation as an individual or group. The constant killing of each other is how their population naturally keeps itself in balance.

Cannibalism is commonplace among them.

These latter three points were what aided in the rise of one of the worst mistakes in all HNT history - the War of Sarathin.

The War of Sarathin:

The War of Sarathin was a decade and a half long conflict between the HNT and the Saramesh's home planetary system, wrought by misunderstanding, internal Angorvosen corruption, and the Saramesh's incapability to fear or hate death.

It started seven centuries after the HNT's foundation, where the Sarathin system was discovered. Naturally to the HNT's purpose, whereupon discovering FTL-capable sentients, they would try to open friendly relations. The Saramesh, however, had a very different way of perceiving. The ambassador to the Saramesh world expressed revulsion as the "promiscuity" and open murder, seeing Saramesh mating and being slaughtered right before his eyes in the streets with a most surreal, casual apathy; where two were mating, two were killing each other not but a few feet away at times. To the Saramesh, this was just everyday life - to kill or be killed, and if to be killed, then to at least make offspring before it happened.

The Saramesh they met with was also said to have made some disturbing remarks about the Klannphayar ambassador's species, along the lines of "being curious what they taste like."

The ambassador returned, utterly horrified by what he saw, and feeling they were a threat since they were an FTL-capable space fairing civilization, demanded the commander in charge of the local fleet to begin purging the entire population. The commander sympathized, being a friend of the ambassador, but feeling this was such a unique situation, he contacted the HNT higher command as well. He told them exactly what the ambassador told him, which led to an exaggerated image of the Saramesh, painting them as demonic monsters beyond any hope of salvation. In reality, it was just the natural evolution of the Saramesh that made them this way...but of course, this was not known.

War was authorized by the higher command almost immediately, without Lahgtah himself ever seeing or hearing anything about it. The reason it was obscured from him was because the leaders of the Angorvosen at the time saw him as too naive, and feared he might go investigate the matter in person and get himself killed. Thus they kept their king in the dark about the whole matter.

The Angorvosen arrived in a relatively small invasion force at first. Their lightning-quick invasion tactics took the outer worlds by surprise, and they fell within a matter of weeks, but as they closed in on Sarathin itself, the Saramesh had already adapted. The invasion ground to a grueling pace, until it finally reached a stalemate as the Saramesh fought back in a way the HNT never thought possible. Their anti-demonic weapons and methods were ineffective against mortal beings, forcing them to resort to more traditional symmetrical warfare tactics.

Both sides dug in, yet no matter how many Saramesh the HNT armies killed, the Saramesh showed zero signs of failing morale. In fact, the Saramesh even seemed to enjoy it, laughing heartily as they died and killed as if the war was a game.

The HNT soldiers, however, found their morale crushed by these natural psychopaths as the stalemate dragged on. It did not matter how many more reinforcements were pulled - what started as a small invasion fleet became a full armada - the Saramesh kept on, swarming the skies and ground alike, slicing with their thumb blades, raking with their talons, and blasting with solar fusion cannons. Because of the Saramesh's instincts, the HNT soldiers could not simply give up either; they went from fighting a war under orders, to killing for the sake of survival. The Saramesh did not make prisoners from those who surrendered, simply killing them, snatching up their bodies, and eating them.

Eventually, an Angel's Grace Dreadnought was pulled into the fray. Because the troops on the ground of Sarathin could not retreat, it could not simply use its wrath cannon to obliterate the planet. Instead, heeding the discovery that the Saramesh are cold-blooded, the Dreadnought maneuvered itself between the Sun and Sarathin, casting its entire surface in a perpetual midnight.

The planet gradually cooled until it eventually started to freeze, the Saramesh attacks slowed, and the HNT started to take ground once again. The Saramesh still did not give up, however, taking the fighting to their warmer cities, staying in the geothermal-warmed caverns and caves carved in the mountains. One who was so cold he could not fight was questioned by an HNT officer why they didn't just give up, and though clearly suffering the Saramesh seemed to just not understand the notion before dying.

It was not until Lahgtah required the Dreadnought that had been summoned that he finally got hint that something was awry. He discovered, upon contacting the Dreadnought's captain and questioning where it was, that the whole operation was obscured from him. The captain said that he was told Lahgtah was informed, but Lahgtah was not; the captain, just like so many reinforcements, were lied to. So many under the impression that Lahgtah authorized this genocide.

Lahgtah himself made haste to the Sarathin system, boarding the Dreadnought and wishing to know everything there was to know about the Saramesh. He saw not demonic monsters through the old spy footage from before the war, but sentients who simply evolved different instincts that they could not be held accountable for; blaming them for who and what they were would've been like faulting a fish for being unable to climb a tree. They did not have a fondness for bloodshed or passionless, rampant, and casual mating, but were simply apathetic towards it. He learned that they were a highly ritual-oriented society, with families often challenging right-of-rule over the planet via duels between patriarchs. Lahgtah, in a sense, was the patriarch of the HNT, so he figured that perhaps he could end this war one way or another through such a duel.

He went down to the now-frozen surface of Sarathin and marched towards their center of leadership alone. Others attacked him, but HNT soldiers were under his direct order to not attack. Lahgtah simply stopped them with a simple, booming request - to duel their "father" for control. The weakened Saramesh organized the duel, the patriarch showing himself at last; in a matter of minutes and several blade clashes later, the duel was done. The patriarch's severed head lied at Lahgtah's feet, and just like that...the war was over.

The Saramesh immediately recognized Lahgtah as their king, but after all the genocide inflicted upon the Saramesh, Lahgtah rejected his right of rule over them. His first and only act of power over them was reinstating their own independence, and requesting they allow the HNT soldiers to leave this system forever, immediately casting down his crown over them as soon as he received it. The HNT left Sarathin, a broken people that could've been a valuable asset to them: all wasted out of a misunderstanding.

It all went to prove that alien life is just that: alien. Two different aliens may be sentient and sapient, but in such different ways that render them incomprehensible to each other. It went to show that evil is not so easy to see, for evil requires intent. For the Saramesh and all their killing and promiscuity, it was not done out of a lust for it, but because it was just what they were...and that was all there was to it.

In the aftermath of the war, the commanders who kept this whole operation secret from Lahgtah, orchestrating this genocide, were exiled. The only interactions the HNT ever had again with Saramesh controlled space were small-scale scientific ones, along with Lahgtah himself making private journeys to learn more about them while they would learn about his people as well.

The Saramesh were never among the HNT sovereignty, but some Saramesh volunteered themselves as soldiers in the HNT. Being either survivors or descendants or survivors, the Saramesh did not see the war as a tragedy, but rather admired the HNT for how fiercely they fought and what "supremacy" they displayed. Some even regretted the fighting stopping at all, seeing dying by another's hand as a death unquestioningly deserved and honored, no matter the cause. This reckless lack of self-preservation, as well as flight capabilities, renders these volunteers as lethal shock troops who gladly embark on missions no other would be willing.

On the other hand, many of the more "proud" Saramesh hold resentment for the HNT because of their ideals and tenants of faith being incompatible with the Saramesh way of life, seeming as backwards to them as their own lifestyle seemed backwards to the ambassador so long ago. Some of these Saramesh went off to the Fringe, becoming murderous outlaws, henchmen, or more infamously, owners of gladiatorial tournaments given their apathy towards bloodshed.

The Saramesh culture as a whole remains as it has always been: constant warring between families, ruling families changing with the seasons: the cycle of life and death changing as rapidly as the days of the week upon their world. It is a system most now avoid, as the battles often reach the space around the planets as well in their solar sail-galleons, and the Saramesh hold no pity for those foolish enough to get caught in the crossfire.