People of the Terraverse

The Terraverse is populated with many different races, from small animals to big ones to intelligent beings capable of bending the fabric of space-time, Leaving out the many animals for now, let's have a look at some of the intelligent races. There are two groups of races, type A races and type B races - inventive right?. These are not part of the lore but a way of classifying the lore. Type A races are seen all over the place, they include the alliance and a few others, they have a lot of lore and thinking put into them, too much in some cases. The type B races are not as fleshed out, they are often only hinted at or glimpsed occasionally, they tend to make up the background noise, they are also a lot more varied. So in no particular order, here we go:

Type A:

• Terran
• Du'lak
• Frayan
• Dracon

Type B:

• Freth
• Phanten
• Alcinnian
• Oparth
• Tharg
• Voyron Apeoid
• Voyron Insectoid
• Owlaffian
• Floranian
• Xenii
• Helio
• Flame

The different races each have their own home worlds and colonies, they have unique looks and cultures and this is most definitely not all of the type B races, there will be more to come as I delve deeper into the lore, some type B races may even be eventually upgraded to type A, if that does happen I will make an updated list of all the races. Let's take a closer look at the type A races:

TERRAN

The Terrans are very similar to humans, their culture developed on wards form a similar point to our own. They look so similar that you would not be able to tell them apart (Note: The biggest difference would be that Terrans have significantly longer incisors), and there's good reason for this: They were originally human, but over time I developed them into a separate species. They have all the regular pros and cons that humans have and are your baseline species. They are not identical though, Terrans age far slower than us and live to an average age of around 200 Terran standard years, that's about 288 earth years. 

The Terrans formed the Alliance first with the Du'lak and later included the Frayans and Dracons, they are held accountable for much of alliance culture, so i'm putting it here.

Their society is divided into nine "Factions" inventively labeled 1 to 9, each lead by one of the Illians. These Factions are similar to political viewpoints, they are groups that people assign themselves to based on their agreements with the views of that Faction. Factions hold little actual power on their own but the views of the leader can heavily influence the people they follow. The only time the Factions have ever had actual conflict was during the years leading up to and during the Alliance civil war. There was a Tenth faction created after the Time leap by Itzl Atavuli, daughter of the ninth Illian, that claimed their own territory under the Itzillian government, they remained on good terms with the alliance and included members from all races within it. Before the Itzillian government was officially recognized by the Alliance they were regarded as rebels (because they were) but whilst there was no actual fighting they did build up a sizable fleet under the flagship Spirit of rebellion (SoR).

DU'LAK

The Du'lak are the native people of Twill. They are very similar to the Terrans to the point that inter-species breeding was possible, They live for a full 250 Terran years and while they share many traits they are often far more varied between individuals. The Du'lak average height is very close to the Terran's however Du'lak males are significantly taller and bulkier than most Terrans while their females are often shorter and slimmer. Their skin is vividly coloured from black to white and all colours in between, they also have slight variations in their colouration covering them that form well defined stripes. Black and white are the rarest colourations and in Du'lak culture often considered regal. Blues and reds are the most common colours shortly followed by orange and purple, green and pink surprisingly rare but this is suspected due to the native flora of Twill and the use of skin colour as a camouflage. There are no creatures on Twill that have evolved any type of fur or hair and the Du'lak are no exception. Their faces are very similar to Terrans but with a few differences, the least noticeable would be their having four top incisors and two bottom ones. More noticeably would be that although their faces are not striped they have "flat" noses, they are wider and protrude less. The most noticeable feature however would be that in place of their hair they have three tentacles called "Xy'E'Tendris" that protrude from the rear of their heads. These Xy'E'Tendris usually reach down to around their waist, sometimes longer and are tipped with small protrusions including fins, spikes or spines, depending on their heritage.

(Side note: while this race was heavily based on star wars' Twi'lek, for their initial look they have been tweaked to be changed significantly, one day I'll find a way to 3D model/draw a Du'lak head to prove this point in a later post. They also share very few cultural similarities.)

FRAYAN

The Frayans were the last race to join the alliance. They were initially very seclusive and it took them many generations to integrate fully. They are the shortest lived species, with an average lifespan of around 80 to 120 Terran years. Their home world, Fraya, is primarily covered in large oceans with only small islands that are inhabited. The Frayan's learnt to preserve their natural habitat and quickly became masters of building sea-ships. With little to no space to expand on Fraya they set out to explore the stars, eventually colonising another habitable world in their star system with significantly more landmass.

They Frayans are thought to have evolved from a dog-like species. Their facial structure is closer to a dog's than a Terran's and although they are humanoid they are covered in a short fur. They have a long and often bushy tail that helps them balance but  they have little to no conscious control over it. Their ears stand upright atop their head in a wolf-like fashion, however they often add one or two feet to their hight. The Frayans are usually the shortest of the races, reaching only four and a half feet at maximum (ears excluded). They are also the lightest and most agile race in the alliance.

DRACON

The Dracons were the third race to join the alliance. They were initially found by the alliance as little more than tribal savages. Their society progressed from tribes to thriving cities in as little as six generations. They were first contacted as a civilised society when the orbit of a satellite set up to watch them decayed until it crashed into the outskirts of a town, giving the alliance no choice but to reveal themselves. The Dracons were surprisingly accepting of the revelation of the alliance however they were not invited to and did not want to join them then. They reverse engineered the satellite until they constructed functioning, if dubious, starships. The world of Draco was a barren wasteland, with few plants and large mountain ranges. The Dracons moved off-world shortly into three orbital structures where they could escape the harsh heats and more easily grow crops.

They are taller, heavier and generally stronger than any of the other races in the alliance, often reaching 8 or 9 feet tall, they have thick scaled hides designed for close quarters combat, they are humanoid but with long tails and large leathery wings they are the most varied on that theme.

Basic timeline of the Terraverse

So, to understand the Terraverse, we're going to need to look at a basic timeline. We'll get to more in-depth looks at characters, ships, worlds and races later on.

It's very hard to find a starting point in the Terraverse due to two important events, the "Time Leap" and the "Time Skip". As this implies, time travel is possible in the Terraverse, however it is used only on three occasions, but we'll get to that.

The most logical place to start would be the beginning, although events happen before this, for the sake of sanity we'll put them at the end.

Terra maxima is a planet orbiting the star Terra Lux, or Lux as it's more commonly called. This planet is home to the Terrans, a race of people so similar in appearance that were one to stand next to you you would easily mistake them for a tall human. Their cultures and world was very similar to Earth in many regards, and there's a reason for this that we'll get to.

First i'll explain the way years and stuff works, just fo we're all on the same page. "TMY" is the first dating system used, it stands for Terra Maxima Year. It becomes obsolete very quickly however as you'll see but it's "year" is kept through out the whole of the Terraverse. One Terran year is 507 Terran days, each of which are 25 hours long. That's about 1.145 (1.44691780821918) Earth years for each Terran year.

In 2300 TMY The Terrans laid down plans to construct their first warp-capable starship, designed to leave the Lux system and venture forth into the stars, this ship was called the TMS Discovery. Construction was completed in 2303 and she was launched the same year. Traveling only a few times aster than light she took months to reach the nearest star system, bi-hadral, only to find an empty binary star system near the end of it's life, with no planets to speak of. By the year 2306 the Terrans made first contact in a small star system of little importance other than a few mineral rich asteroids. The Terrans encountered radio signals coming from the asteroid belt and upon further investigation nearly warped into an alien craft mining at the asteroids. I'll cover the encounter in more detail later but they met a race that called themselves the Du'lak. The Du'lak were humanoids very similarly built to the Terrans, however their skin colour varied wildly from black to white and every colour in between, they had subtle stripes of lighter or darker colours covering their sides, arms legs and head. They were bald but had a pair of "Xy'E'Tendris", tentacle like structures attached to the rear of their heads, that would reach down to their waists.

First contact with the Du'lak went well for both parties and soon they established embassies on both home-worlds, Terra Maxima and Twill. The future was looking up for a few years, and then the Du'lak started to establish a very powerful stellar military. The Terrans rose to the challenge and before long war broke out. The fighting was on a whole new level, unlike anything either race had ever seen before for loosing meant that your entire species would be wiped out. This was lasted 100 Terran years before economics forced an end to the hostilities. Both sides were too evenly matched for any headway to be made but failing wartime economies on both sides forced a ceasefire.

Shortly after the ceasefire the two governments held a meeting in which they decided that such a war must never happen again. To stop any further conflict between the two worlds it was proposed that they should not only form an alliance - which they did - but there should be Terrans raised on Twill and Du'lak raised on Terra Maxima, a bold move. These "crossovers" were full citizens of both worlds. The project was later refereed to by historians as the "second most successful government initiative". It sealed the gaps and despite some serious racism in the first few years it eventually lead to the allied government which brought the two worlds closer together until the lines started to blur to the point that you were an "alliance citizen".

Then one day in 2501 a team of researchers finally made a computer that could think - artificial intelligence. By the end of the year they had reached the same average intelligence level as the alliance members. These AIs started to demand citizenship and after a two year long peaceful strike they were finally granted it. These AIs formed barriers in their own code, limiting them to the same average intelligence as the rest of the alliance. They were a minority group and would stay that way until the very end. They took three major forms; Hard, soft and Physical. I'll talk about them more at a later date.

In the early days of 2501 there was another very interesting event. One of the stars of Bi-Hadral exploded. It formed a black hole, swallowed it's counter part and due to the way this happened it was flung directly at the Lux system. This was discovered in 2505 and caused Mass panic across the alliance, until Terra Maxima was evacuated. Temporary orbital structures were erected around Twill and the majority of the Terra Maximan population was moved in. 7.5 billion people. The other 1.5 billion were moved onto twill itself. Resources were scarce, diseases claimed huge swaths of the populations and crime rates skyrocketed. They needed a miracle.

The Nine were formed in 2525. A team of researchers had discovered an artifact on the second moon. They found nine spheres. They were perfectly 5 cm in diameter and perfectly round. Alongside each sphere were 10 small cubes. There was also a very simple note etched onto a metal tablet, in Terran. The note told a tale of the spheres, it stated that they must be touched by every living Alliance member. It foretold that there were Nine "Illians" that would touch the spheres. once they touched them, they would be fused together. Following the instructions of the mysterious note they found that Nine people did indeed absorb the spheres into themselves. They were given a few instructions and many abilities by these spheres. They used the smaller cubes to grant eternal longevity to one person each. It's very hard to describe without going into full detail so I will explain the whole process in a later post, however for now you need to know that the Nine were faster, smarter and stronger, than the rest of the alliance. For this reason they managed to ascend to the heights of government and were loved by the people.

Terra Maxima was destroyed by the black hole in 2553.

In 2574 a young Du'lak wanting nothing more than to fly fighter craft assisting the TMS Zedox as a sensor sweep pilot discovered the first of the ring-worlds.They were artifacts left behind by the same people that created the Illians. They were artificial worlds, and were quickly settled by the displaced population of Terra Maxima. over the course of the next thousand years 12 more ring-worlds were discovered and settled; 12 around the galaxy in a rough circle and one in the centre, huge, insanely so, surrounding the black hole at the centre of the galaxy. The alliance encountered two more races shortly after they started to settle the second ring world. The Frayans, a race of cat-like humanoids and the Dracons, a lizard-like race. Both joined the alliance and the idea of independent home-worlds was eventually forgotten. The four races of the Alliance lived peacefully for many years, exploring, expanding and making contact with a few other species. They had a few confrontations with these other races but nothing more than the odd skirmish, they were in the ring world era.

When the first ring-world was settled the dating system TMY was abandoned and ARD was begun. ARD standing for After Ring Discovery, used the standard Terran year and day, as the ring worlds, days were based upon their spin and the alliance were able to control the spin of their ring-worlds.

In ARD 1,780,652 tensions were rising between the multiple political factions of the alliance, each lead by one of the Illians, civil war broke out near the end of the year. "The great war" lasted for 4 years until it culminated in ARD 1,780,656 at the battle of Ring 13. Ring 13 was a control hub, it could control the spin, atmosphere and gravity of each of the other ring worlds so it was of vital importance. The entire Equalist and Monarchist fleets (that's the two sides, more on that in a later post.) were present. The proximity of a super-massive black hole caused some very serious issues for the fleets battling and more than one ship was sucked into it and spaghettified (that's the technical term, I swear). The ring world itself was badly damaged in the fighting and destabilized, falling into the black hole and being torn apart. It controlled the other ring-worlds via a few quantum linked particles that, when their counterparts met a black hole were released from their entanglement and caused the other ring-worlds to shut down. The two battling fleets were also sucked into the black hole by the debris of ring 13 and gravitational eddies from the black hole itself.

Only three ships survived: RS Chronos and RS Vis. The RS Triumph was flung 200 years into the future when she attempted to use her jump drive as she was hit by a gravitational wave.

A few ships escaped from the dying ring-worlds and banded together with the two military ships that escaped ring 13 - both Equalists. The ninth Illian - known as Nine - was aboard the RS Vis and also escaped the battle of ring 13.

The survivors built the spacestation AS-1 and the alliance lived out the rest of its declining days there. Due to a few differences in the laws pf physics in the Terraverse (which I'll talk about in a later post) the Terraverse had begun to collapse in on itself and as the energy density rose it would soon become uninhabitable. It appeared that the curtains were drawing shut, until the seventh Illian - Seven - showed up at AS-1 aboard the RS triumph 200 years after the battle of ring 13. Using data from Triumph's time traveling they managed ot backwards engineer a time drive, and taking a leap of faith, the alliance converted

AS-1 into the largest starship created so far, and jumped through time to after the end of the universe. This was known as the Time skip.

I am going to leave this here for now as a basic history of what I like to call "act 1" of the terraverse. I will get to acts 2 and 3 later see you there!

Welcome to the Terraverse

Ok so, try imagining a galaxy. Now imagine that galaxy has a deep and complicated lore spanning nearly two million years. Now design some spaceships, design a few races but remember to intertwine their stories, tackle a few social issues, add some conflict and you're getting close to the idea behind the Terraverse.

When I was about 8 years old, my parents got divorced. It hit me like a freight train and I turned to books and video games as a form of escapism. I would like to invision my own charecters in the books that I read and games that I played. I've always been a sci-fi nerd so the Terraverse is the result of 10 years of thinking.

I've got plenty of charecters, worlds and spaceships that I have designed that I want to get out of my head and onto paper - metaphorically - so I figure that this would be a good place to let the world see them!