"Mii"s are basically cartoony characters you can make on a Nintendo Wii or 3DS

Iron: First of all, we're all so-called demons. There are different breeds, but Leijona has yet to invent names for these. Anyways, I'm about 1,85 meters tall, muscular, always barefoot and bare-chested, only wearing threadbare short "capri trousers" (Leijona: I hope this word fits...). I always bear two swords on my back, so the belts are like an X on my chest. Oh, and dark brown hair and a three-day stubble.

Neila: Well, I'm a svelte, 1,75 meters tall woman, wearing a blouse and long trousers, both in browny colour together with cutty roman sandals. Long brown hair with a strand of little red pearls, pointed ears and three scars on my face, beginning on my left eye and ending down right, which makes me half-blind. I'm bearing two swords at my belt. Oh yes, and the most obvious thing: Two huge angel-like white feathered wings.

Kubiku: My physique may resemble Crysar's. I have neither eyes nor ears. I have slaps all over my body and head. They work like an armour and make me practically invulnerable. Also, they bundle the sound so I can hear incredible good. I can hear a needle falling on the ground in the middle of a huge combat when I'm standing hundreds of meters away.

Leijona: And I think that you are bigger than Crysar. Kubiku is almost always sitting, then he is about 1,70 meters tall. When he's standing on his two legs, then he's about 3 meters, his tail not counting.

Gan: I'm a guy about 1,80m tall, pretty slender, almost black skin. I have the ears (some piercings included ) and the tail of a black panther. My hair is very long and also black, though it can have a gleam of dark blue when you watch at it in the right light. I usually wear it in a plait but you can imagine me with dreadlocks as well. ^_^ … Have I forgot something? Oh yeah, and my clothes are more average, a t-shirt and short trousers.

Leijona: I should add that Iron, Gan and Neila all look like they're something around 30-35 years old, but they are in fact a lot older (about a couple of hundred years). Gan looks a bit younger than Iron and Neila though.

Sheela: I'm an anthropomorphic leopard, not much to say about me besides this, and that I'm much younger than the others, almost still an adolescent.

Leijona: Group picture of Neila, Gan and Iron (I only like Gan in this one) and a sketch thingy of Kubiku (I still can't draw him):

Gan with dreadlocks:

Picture of Sheela coming soon (I hope).

Left to right: Chilam, Chosovi, Scout.

[QUOTE=bookmonkey786]Sure send the details over. It looks like an interesting universe. I'd like to read more.[/QUOTE]

The story is moderately hard SF, with effort made to think out the ramifications and potential applications of the many soft elements. (with a few exceptions, such as ignoring the fact that under our current understanding of physics any FTL drive would also be a time travel device)

It takes place in an alternate timeline where first contact was made in the 1980's, when a refugee ship containing some 6,000 Segwaren announced their presence. (They were fleeing the destruction of their home planet and had set their sights on the closest system with indications of a habitable world. Other lifeboats chose different potential targets and were never heard from again. Segwaren are reptilian humanoids with subtle feline attributes. Their standard posture is like that of a theropod, although they can rear up on their hind legs and stand upright without their tail counterbalancing them) When they arrived, the support crew not in cryogenic stasis were overjoyed to find that their gamble had payed off and that third planet of the system was habitable and had an atmosphere breathable with only minor discomfort, and apprehensive to find that it was already populated with intelligent aliens. The Segwaren had no weapons, no way to turn back, nowhere else to go, their life support was running out, and their not-particularly stealthy arrival had surely been noticed by every nation on earth. After spending several weeks in orbit trying to decipher the alien radio signals streaming from the planet, they were dismayed to learn that not only had their arrival nearly precipitated a nuclear holocaust, but now the two nuclear superpowers were tentatively allied against the alien threat and scrambling to find ways to deal with it, becoming steadily more paranoid the longer they had just sat up there in orbit without responding to any diplomatic or scientific transmissions.

I'm still coming up with the details of how first contact was resolved, but after a considerably bumpy start most likely meriting its own story, the two races eventually became firm allies and earth became the Segwaren's adoptive homeworld. At this point, neither race had any knowledge of the larger galactic picture, although their own meeting seemed proof positive that other species were out there.The Segwaren's technology was only about 20-30 years ahead of modern earth (50-60 years ahead of what was available in the 1980's) in most categories, although their biosciences were well developed, if largely shunned out of fear of what had happened to their original homeworld. Their space technologies were also fairly well developed, yet nowhere near what would be needed to escape their system by conventional means. If not for a quirk in their species development, they would never have had the means to escape the destruction of their world. Of course, that same quirk was also the reason for their world's destruction, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The Segwaren (as well as several native species on their homeworld) were capable of tapping into the Thorai field, (named for the Segwaren scientist that first pioneered its study) an omnipresent background force that could locally alter the fundamental laws of physics in myriad ways. Throughout history, predators had attacked prey by making use of the field to suppress the strong nuclear force in a microscopic area, causing a breakdown of atomic nuclei and a catastrophic release of energy in the targeted area, (fire-retardant properties were a key survival trait of many plant species) prey animals had folded space to avoid predators or travel long distances, etc. Many novel techniques and applications were used in nature, (read: I need to do some research and brainstorming to come up with more interesting yet semi-plausible uses) but the Segwaren made use of only a handful of them. Space-folding, firelances, blinders, farsight, all helped shape their culture and development, but none to the extent provided by artificial manipulation of their gift via machinery and genetics. In addition to his contributions in understanding how the field itself operated, Thorai also uncovered the secret to how it was accessed in the first place.

Once exposed to concentrated energy from the field itself for prolonged periods, certain elements would undergo a structural change and partially transcend the boundaries of our universe. Straddling multiple dimensions, these trans-Newtonian elements (technically named after the equivalent Segwaren scientist, but for the sake of clarity I’m substituting good old Newton. Call it a lingual concession for readability, and probably one that I’ll continue to use for aliens, since I imagine most races would simply substitute the familiar names of their own researchers and discoverers of scientific principles when translating, rather than using the names of countless duplicates that independently discovered the same things on other worlds) provide a conduit that allows common matter to influence and interact with the field.

All Thorai-field using animals have high concentrations of trans-Newtonian elements in their brains and nervous systems, and in females, the reproductive system. New stores of the needed T-N elements are automatically created and maintained during a creature’s growth, converted from ordinary elements taken in through nutrition. After a creature’s death, the T-N elements gradually decay back into their standard forms without active concentration of the field to maintain them. (typically becoming totally inert within a few years time)

Before that decay happens however, the T-N elements can be harvested, refined, and put to use. (harvested from livestock animals of course- using dead Segwaren for that purpose is considered highly unethical without their prior consent, similar to organ donation among humans. Not to mention it’s highly inefficient compared to what can be accomplished by harvesting fast-growing meat animals) Specialized machines can make use of T-N elements, albeit very clumsily compared to living creatures and with a far shorter number of options for manipulating the field. What they lack in finesse and range of applications, they more than make up for in brute strength and endurance. A single teleportation module might have the collective strength of thousands of animals behind it, (must resist horsepower joke) and be able to operate continuously so long as sufficient energy is supplied and the parts remain in good order. One of the biggest hurdles remaining in the field of Thorai machinery even in the present day is finding an economical way to replicate the ability of a living creature to convert and maintain T-N elements. (laboratory quantities have been successfully produced artificially, but there appears to be no easy way to scale up the process) Most notable among the machines using Thorai energy are the short and long range teleporters, several varieties of disintegration weaponry, and the Thorai-Kitsun rift generators.

Thorai-Kitsun rift generators link two points in space, creating a portal between them. A Segwaren is needed to create the portal, but after that it can be maintained indefinitely by Thorai technology. Each end can be expanded or contracted to an almost arbitrary size, (limited only by the size of the containment ring and power supply issues) but unless the opposite end is exactly the same size as the other, all matter passing through will be stretched\compressed proportionally, down to a subatomic level. This requires the same amount of force as would be required conventionally however, so mismatched apertures act very much like a solid wall. Each rift can only link to a single location, so before it can be used for long-distance transportation one end must be taken to its destination. A gateway linking multiple locations must therefore have several independent links, each collapsed to a singularity-sized point and stored until called for, and can only access the gates those links correspond to. Connecting it to new locations requires physically taking a link from source to destination the long way (trying to take wormholes through other wormholes is a Bad Idea) and installing it into the gateway. When one end of a rift can no longer be kept open, (such as when the machinery maintaining it is damaged or destroyed) the other instantly vanishes as well. (note: this is not the same as collapsing one or both ends of the rift to a microscopic point for storage or conservation of power when not in use) The energy required to keep a person-sized rift open is quite modest over short distances, and can be extended to several dozen light years before it becomes exorbitant for civilian purposes. In theory, galaxy-crossing rifts could be created, but would require phenomenal amounts of power to be kept open. Collapsed pinpoint rifts can be maintained for almost nothing, no matter the distance and can be expanded when needed.

Now, at the time of their civilization’s destruction, the Segwaren had no intergalactic capabilities and were still tied down to a single planet, but their long-range teleportation technology and rift generators allowed them easy access to space without the need for bulky chemical rockets and the need to fight tooth and nail to get even small payloads out of a gravity well. A few attempts at orbital colonies had been started, but were mostly regarded as curiosities until the long-term sustainability issues could be worked out.

The collapse itself stemmed from advances in Segwaren biosciences. Over 3,000 years ago, a legendary warrior had been born whose ability to focus the Thorai field was unparalleled. He led several famous wars to victory and consolidated an empire for his ruler until his death by poisoning at the hands of a rival. DNA analysis of his remains showed several anomalies, which sparked a flurry of interest in scientific circles. After tests had shown that test animals inserted with the gene had increased Thorai potential by an order of magnitude, the military gained interest as well and began heavily funding their research. Further refinements were made and the potential was pushed ever higher, but brought disturbing behavioral changes. The first Segwaren trials revealed that the feelings of clarity and vividness of emotion and sensation felt by ordinary Segwaren when highly focused on using the field were amplified in the test subjects to the point that ordinary stimuli became unbearable and emotional responses suffered self-feedback to the point of madness. Happiness became manic joy, the slightest irritation would provoke an unstoppable rage, and mild depression would almost invariably spiral into suicidal self-destruction.

Efforts were made to limit the damage and restore a semblance of normality to the altered Segwaren’s psyches, with attempts ranging from drugs, counseling, and meditation to further genetic alterations and even lobotomy. It soon became clear that most attempts deadened not only the subject’s response, but also their ability to use the Thorai field

A strategy was eventually reached that would allow a warrior to maximize his potential on the battlefield while ensuring he posed the minimum risk to his allies or himself out of combat. Modified Segwaren, code-named Sachen, would be trained from birth to control their emotions. Meanwhile, the genetic changes would have a delayed expression so that they would only manifest near adulthood. When they finally kicked in, the Sachen would be put on a regimen of drugs to make them more manageable, and only taken off of them during highly-regulated training scenarios and actual combat, with the hope that their strict conditioning would allow them to bend and not break under the strain of baseline existence, let alone the stressful conditions of battle or the incredible boost that would come from actually using the Thorai field.

It proved effective for the most part, but Sachen troops quickly gained a (mostly undeserved) reputation among normal Segwaren for being just a step away from going into a berserker rage and indiscriminately slaughtering friend and foe alike, and were regarded in much the same way as one would view a live grenade with a loose pin. The fact that each Sachen had a small explosive planted inside their skull set to explode on command from their superior officer, if the signal was interrupted, or if the commanding officer’s heart stopped beating helped, but not much. If anything, it reinforced the idea that Sachen were only marginally less likely to kill you than the enemy was. And when a single combatant had the power to level a mountainside and irradiate the landscape for kilometers around just by concentrating, the level of havoc a rogue Sachen could potentially unleash before its death was frightening.

Despite the fears surrounding the Sachen project, the lack of major disasters encouraged the Segwaren militaries to move forward and continue pushing the boundaries of what was possible. Advances followed one after the other and rival nations became locked in arms races that mirrored those of the United States and USSR. No surviving records indicate what set off the final cataclysm or who had caused it. There is even contention as to whether a single experimental Sachen triggered it or whether it was through the efforts of a large group effort. Proponents of the single-Sachen theory point to the unlikeliness of being able to get a large enough group of ‘ordinary’ or even enhanced Sachen to suicide simultaneously, while their opponents cite the equally unlikely possibility that a Sachen had been created that could operate on the sheer scale of the cataclysm when the very best Sachen previously created had effects equal to an 11 megaton nuke at best. Still others believe that they had found a way to replicate the Sachen’s extreme connection to the Thorai field with conventional technology and that they had boosted the effect out of all proportion without fear of an emotional collapse and had paid the price as a result.

The only thing that is known for sure is that on (insert date here) at (insert time here) the western hemisphere simply ceased to exist. The atmosphere was burned away in an instant, the western oceans flash-boiled and vanished, and seismic tremors tore open fissures all across the planet, birthing forests of volcanoes. A yawning crater the size of a megacontinent was all that remained of the blast site, glowing white from the heat and digging deep into the planet’s mantle. All that remained of the Segwaren and their biosphere were what had survived aboard the orbital colonies. Never designed to last indefinitely, the colonies found themselves on a race against the clock to find ways to extend their resources and prolong the lifespans of their fundamentally imbalanced onboard ecosystems.

Years passed, and the decision was made for the greater part of the survivors to scatter among the stars, traveling far beyond the reach of anything previously attempted in the hopes of coming across a habitable world. Equipment was constructed and repurposed, colonies dismantled and rebuilt, stores of T-N elements were scavenged from the searing airless face of a planet once called home, and the long trek into the dark began. To save on resources, the entire crew and most of the animals would be kept in cryogenic storage with only a skeleton crew kept awake to maintain the ships and try keeping the onboard ecosystem from crashing. Their range was cruelly limited by the uncompromising half-life of the T-N elements stockpiled for the foldspace drives. Once exhausted, there would be no way to replenish them with the meager resources available. Waking the entire crew and putting them to work powering the machinery by channelling their own Thorai field connections would keep them moving, but at a greatly reduced rate and would burn through their resources and life support in short order.

As you already know, one of the ships did eventually manage to reach its destination safely and were able to rekindle the embers of their long dead race, and give humanity a boost to the stars in the bargain.





Hmm, this is getting a little long and I've barely scratched the surface. Would you like me to break the setting down into chunks, or would you like to wait a week or two while I try compiling everything in one place?