Heritorns

Natives of the planet Herta, these peace-loving gastropodae are perhaps the single longest-lived species in the history of the Milky-Way besides the now-dead Creamies. Their history of interstellar travel predates the Human race by at least a million years, though their impact on galactic civilization has, throughout essentially all of that time, been virtually nonexistent. This is by design; Heritorns abhor violence, being at once both highly spiritual and very scientifically minded, and so when the Creamies rose to power on the galactic scale, the Heritorns vowed to remain hidden forever. Thankfully there's plenty of empty space to enable that.

Biology

Nutrient Processing

Heritorns evolved naturally as photo-synthesizing slug creatures for many millions of years before making the switch to more energy-dense sources of nutrient. Their ability to form complex sugar molecules via light and carbon remains, however, and while their respiratory system adapted to oxygen-nitrogen rich atmospheres long before they turned interstellar, the photo-synthesizing layers of their skin allow them to recapture essentially all of the carbon produced from cellular respiration in their muscles. The byproduct of this process is obviously oxygen, which they can then recycle through their respiratory system, rinse, repeat. The end result is that while this process is not perfectly efficient a Heritorn can hold their breath for an absurdly long time so long as they are provided with the nutrient-rich water they prefer to subsist on and a sufficient amount of UV light. Coupled with a low-pressure system of internal organs and extremely dense musculature resulting from their lack of a skeleton, this unique process means that Heritorns can survive unassisted in the vacuum of space for quite some time provided they can avoid being blasted by radiation.

Reproduction

Heritorns reproduce via parthenogenesis, excreting a slurry of viable genetic matter into a hatching vessel of some sort which will house the slurry as it begins the lengthy process of converting its mass into a new Heritorn bioform. This process takes nearly two Standard Years, and only has about a 60% success rate, though it usually takes nearly six months before it can be positively determined that the slurry wasn't viable. Because of this Heritorn populations grow slowly, but given the average life-span of a Heritorn is well north of a thousand Standard Years, most Heritorn will still sire dozens of children.

Heritorn biology doesn't hinge on gender for reproduction, but there are still gendered traits among the Heritorn thought to be a hold-over from the need to attract companions for protection against the various creatures indigenous to Herta that hunted the huge gastropodae in the early days of their evolution. These physical aspects are fluid, and can with much concentration be consciously directed by the individual over time, but in general they fall into three categories the Heritorns translate as feminid, wirminid, and masinid. While these physical aspects have no bearing on reproduction, there is a sub-culture of Heritorns who have become fascinated with the sexual reproduction of native Herta life and the Human race at large, and who will role-play the genders they see represented in those sources.

Technology

Power Generation

Heritorn power generation needs tend to be significantly lower than those of Human technology. This is a combination of their devices being significantly more refined in general, and therefore much more efficient, and the fact that the power needs of their star drives don't scale upward as their ships get larger (see Interstellar Travel below). Thus their largest power drain is the need for artificial gravity, but even that is lower than Human needs given that Heritorn biology allows them to attach themselves to various surfaces regardless of gravitational pull. Thus the artificial gravity on their ships tends to be about 50% lower than on Human vessels.

Because of this Heritorn vessels and settlements generate almost all of their power via passive means, such as direct photo-voltaic stimulation or wind turbines where possible. In this too they have an advantage over Humanity, in that much like the rest of their technology their photo-voltaic panels are far more efficient. 99-point-nearly-repeating-nines% of every photon that strikes a Heritorn panel is converted losslessly into power. They store their power chemically (see also Calib) and in the event that their energy reserves run out in interstellar space they can re-charge enough to reach a nearby star by simply basking in the background glow of the galaxy for a few hours. While ship captains of course try to avoid this circumstance it's more of an inconvenience than anything else, given that even without active life-support systems or direct UV stimulation a Heritorn crew can simply hold their breath and enter a low-activity state which will enable them to survive for days without undue concern.

On the surface of a planet Heritorn photo-voltaic panels are augmented by sophisticated wind turbines, and when used in tandem with Heritorn technology very little energy storage is needed. This changes somewhat in the case of Herta, which itself spends very, very little time in close proximity to stars. The vast majority of the surface of the planet is covered in photo-voltaic panels, which generate a large portion of the planet's energy needs even in dark interstellar space, but good use has also been made of the planet's various geo-thermal regions to provide the rest of the needed energy.

Interstellar Travel

Heritorns use a method called "dark jumping" for interstellar travel. The technology is unknown to Humans, but utilizes several of the same properties of the universe as Humanities own technologies historically have. Dark jumping allows a Heritorn vessel, station, or even world to effectively instantly exchange physical locations of a group of quantum-entangled particles, along with the surrounding mass. The main limitation is that the two groups of entangled particles must originate in the same location in order for them to be properly entangled. Thus the Heritorns also use subspace (Hawking space to humans) to broadcast those particles at faster-than-light (FTL) velocities.

For short distance maneuvers their ships utilize a "light speed drive", a device which blasts a series of light pulses into space to which their artificial gravity well has been quantum entangled. This allows the vessel's "dark jump drive" to pull the ship into subspace for a handful of milliseconds to exchange places with some of those entangled photons. This process is considered a light-speed drive because its velocity is limited by the speed of the emitted light in a vacuum, even though the actual vessel travels much faster than that when "dark jumping" to the location where the photons are.

FTL travel is accomplished using quantum entangled sub-atomic particles within subspace itself. These particles are broadcast from within a bulbous FTL enclosure called a Tendril, which houses a particle accelerator and a Heritorn equivalent of a Hawking Field generator so they can keep a door to subspace open constantly. The Tendril will spin up a particle stream directed at the desired destination through the subspace gateway, and then activate the attached dark jump drive to pull the vessel to that destination once the particles arrive. Due to the nature of subspace the particle front moves at significant multiples of the speed of light. The velocity isn't dissimilar from the Galactic Wormhole Drive, but in practice Heritorn vessels move much faster because they don't face the same issues with wormhole stability that limit the length a wormhole can be, and therefore they can make their entire trip in a single leg even if it's across the width of the galaxy.

Of note, there doesn't appear to be any practical limit to the size of a vessel that can be transported in this manner. Herta, the Heritorn homeworld, has a series of fairly average Tendrils it can use to broadcast a series of standard sized particle waves, which will then trigger a perfectly normal dark jump to the location of the particle wave without any more power required than to dark jump a small shuttle. Dark jumping works based on carriage of the local gravity well that contains the drive, and the relative depth of the natural or artificial gravity well doesn't seem to have any bearing on the required power. When using the drive to dark jump a large natural gravity well, such as a planet, there are however additional concerns beyond traversal of a ship. The effective distance of the drive's effect doesn't include the entire reach of the effect of the gravity well, not quite, but effectually anything in orbit around a planetary body will also be towed along on the jump. That means you can use the drive to flee an invading enemy fleet, along with all your citizens, equipment, orbital defenses, and even natural satellites, but only if you leave before they make it to orbit. If they're already in orbit you're going to have to scrape them off the old-fashioned way.

But ask a Heritorn about dark jump missiles sometime.

Communications

Heritorns use a variation on short-range electromagnetic (EM) wave-based communication, similar to what Humans use for line-of-sight short range communication. This comms method is speed-of-light, and utilizes different carrier frequencies than Humanity of course, but it is essentially familiar and would be detectable and recognizable by Human equipment.

Heritorn FTL comms are, compared to Humanity's, simultaneously somewhat primitive and remarkably advanced. Lacking the wormhole-generating technology of the Humans or a large galactic network of communication substations the Heritorns do not have what you might call galactic network capabilities. When their ships leave the immediate vicinity of Herta they are essentially cut off from communication with the rest of their race. However, there are several large quantum computing facilities on Herta that maintain a direct connection to every Heritorn vessel on deployment. This is accomplished via a pair of entangled photons, one maintained by the facilities on Herta, the other by a comms unit on the ship. These photons cannot be directly observed, of course, but their interaction with a stream of nearby anti-photons can be. The anti-photon stream can also be used to induce rotation and vibration changes in the entangled photons, which will be mirrored on the other end, altering the other stream of anti-photons in predictable ways.

Using these anti-photon streams simple text or highly compressed voice messages can be transmitted instantaneously from a ship to the quantum facilities on Herta. Associated signal metadata allows the quantum computers on Herta to route and re-broadcast the message as needed to a local destination or to another vessel. These messages cannot be terribly lengthy, and true real-time communication isn't exactly possible, but assuming both parties are sitting next to their comms unit to receive and reply to messages it's more like instant-messaging than e-mail.

Culture

Spirituality

Heritorn spirituality is centered around their deep understanding of quantum mechanics and finds root in the idea that all Heritorns, living, dead, and yet to be born, share the same fundamental quantum aspects. This lends their existence a sense of continuity, and they believe that this continuity cannot be broken, only changed, that as individuals they are unobservably entangled with the fabric of the universe itself.

Outward manifestations of this belief include broad and accepting community ties, time each day for individual meditation or communion, and an emphasis on trusting other Heritorns implicitly, among other things.

The broad definitions of "community" adopted by Heritorn settlements and on their ships are integrated to an extent that they would be considered almost familial by Human standards, and in fact many of their community terms are translated as such. The central familial figure of their culture is also their spiritual center, simply called Big Sister or The Sister. This figure is literal, a Heritorn feminid literally hundreds of thousands of years old, who is believed to have attained the ultimate form of Heritorn spiritualism by literally quantum entangling her sentience with the zero-point field of the universe itself. This entangling can be felt by all Heritorns wherever they are in the galaxy, and enables them point navigation coordinates for Herta wherever the planet moves to. Lacking a large galactic presence or communication network this Continuous Aspect of The Sister is one of the only ways Heritorn interstellar ships have of finding their way home. Leaders of communities and individual family groups are similarly looked to as sources of selfless guidance, following the example of The Sister.

Meditation or communion is also a common practice among the Heritorns, a time set aside by individuals for contemplation and centering. The goal of this time is to enable them to follow the path set by The Sister, becoming fully entangled with the universe and the Heritorns around you. Orthodox Heritorns will eschew any outside implements in their meditation, finding a quiet place without distraction to rest. Modern Heritorn's approaches to meditation vary, with some feeling that the same technologies used to entangle their ships and world to subatomic particles hurling through subspace could enable their sapience to find entanglement with the universe, while others take the habits of the orthodox elders to an extreme and meditate only in a complete sensory deprivation chamber so there really can be no distraction.

Extreme racial trust among the Heritorns is rooted in the belief that all Heritorns are entangled at the quantum level, that the unobservable aspects that define their consciousness are entangled from birth with those of every other Heritorn, past and future. Thus every Heritorn can inevitably act only for the benefit of all Heritorns, and that acting to benefit yourself will inevitably benefit all. This has resulted in a society where selfishness logically leads to selflessness, where personal enlightenment such as The Sister's provides guidance to the rest of her race. This inherent trust has the side effect of general distrust of races that aren't Heritorn. While it is possible to win the trust of a Heritorn it tends to require more effort than your average Human, but given that the majority of their interstellar history occurred while actively hiding from the Creamies and that during that time the only races that ever earned their trust were systematically exterminated by said Creamies... that distrust may not be entirely rooted in their spiritualism. Distrust from a species who lived through all that might actually just be pragmatism.

Familial Relationships

Given the nature of their reproduction there aren't terribly strong familial ties among Heritorns. Instead they rely on community associations and lean heavily on the concept of found family. Once a Heritorn has reached maturity (about 25-30 Standard Years) they are free to define their family however they want, essentially choosing those to whom they would like to be most closely entangled. They may live with them, they may not. They may have been raised by them, or they may not have been. These determinations are made slowly over time, but once the entanglement of family takes hold, it is very rarely ever broken. As strong as the racial and community ties are among Heritorns, these selected familial ties are stronger. This springs from their belief in entangled consciousnesses; All Heritorns are joined, but you entangle yourself stronger to your family.

There are individuals that question the logic of that belief, of course. If two things are quantum entangled, then they're entangled. There's no different levels of strength to that. Even still these found families form the basis of Heritorn social structure, with The Sister acting as the perfect family member that binds the rest together.

Scientific pursuits

Heritorns place a large emphasis on the discovery of scientific or technological breakthroughs, though they are equally focused on the importance of maintaining the technologies they have with continued education and iteration. Distant observation of the Creamies for hundreds of thousands of years demonstrated to them the end result of not paying any social respect to the people who maintained and improved the base technologies upon which a culture depended, given that for the Creamies the only occupations that mattered were priest and soldier, best practiced together. To avoid the same stagnation and decay that resulted in Creamy ships and planets failing and being abandoned regularly the Heritorns have elevated the maintenance workers and engineers in their social hierarchy nearly to the top.

While no Heritorn social class is really looked down on, extra honor is paid to those classes deemed most necessary for their way of life. This emphasis on scientific and technological pursuits has resulted in a populace that is almost entirely capable of diagramming the components of a dark jump drive or a tendril, and which incorporates aspects of gravitic field equations or quantum entanglement algorithms into their cooking and art. This lends a particularly eclectic air to other aspects of their culture, but if you're good with numbers or theoretical physics you might be able to see where it all ties together.

Herta

Biosphere

Herta's biosphere is more diverse than many of the inhabited planets throughout the Human occupied parts of the galaxy. This is due in large part to a very strong Heritorn movement to preserve a picture of their way of life at the beginning of their interstellar travels. This has resulted in a number of projects to maintain conditions in the biosphere and the construction of an enormous shell over the surface of most of the planet in order to simulate the conditions of Herta's original sun. While there have been hiccups throughout the millions of years Herta has been interstellar, these efforts have been largely successful, and life on the surface continues to thrive as it had for millions of years prior to the rise of the Heritorns as a species, with slow changes to ecosystems driven by natural selection rather than interference of an intelligent species. Many of the planet's original plant and animal species continue to thrive.

Herta's original orbital path was remarkably elliptical, and her rotational axis tilted rather extremely. The northern pole of the planet was generally always tilted toward the sun, save for several prehistoric periods in the geological record, such that the furthest north landmass is largely arid. A variety of dry climate species thrive in the north, but it is much more sparsely populated than other regions. There are four other large land masses on Herta, two mainly in the northern hemisphere, one that sits nicely on the equator, and one in the largely very cold southern hemisphere. The majority of the southern hemisphere is ocean, needless to say, and the majority of that ocean is locked under a heavy ice cap.

The three more equatorial land masses have a range of climates from northern arid deserts and tropical regions to equatorial temperate zones. The furthest south land mass is partially locked in permafrost, seeing only brief springs between interminably cold winters. Seasonal variations across the planet are slight, given the very small wobble of the planet's axis. Or rather, given the very extreme wobble that kept the northern hemisphere constantly sunward. Herta's variety of biomes might feel somewhat familiar to a Human familiar with Earth, but the nearly unchanging nature of the passage of a year would make the entire planet feel as if it were a tropical paradise. Except that depending on where you were, the temperature would almost never be comfortable.

History

The geological history of Herta is much the same as the history of any other habitable rocky planet, like Earth. It formed from a disk of dust and debris orbiting a young star, and over the course of a billion years or so it slowly collected the building blocks of land masses, water, a biosphere, and eventually life. That life slowly progressed from single cells with self-replicating proteins into complex lifeforms built on helical data encoding molecules. Eventually the Heritorns evolved, progressed from tribal hunter-gatherers to an enlightened race of largely mature individuals, developed the technology for interstellar space travel, and took to the stars.

There are several points where Herta differs from the development cycle of many other rocky planets. In the first point she was never struck by an impactor sufficiently massive to eject significant amounts of material from the planet itself, meaning that she has no natural satellite. This resulted in low-to-no tidal effects beyond the gravitational attraction of Herta's sun, which in turn led to the extreme axial wobble of the planet that manifested almost as if the pole were tidally locked. The second is that when the Heritorns decided to take to the stars, and when they eventually crossed paths with the then-fledgling Creamy civilization, they decided that in the interest of safety they would strive for ultimate secrecy, meaning they needed to make their home mobile.

And so it was that Herta became the first (and so far only) interstellar planet in the galaxy. For the first several centuries Herta would leap into the habitable zone of a compatible star scouted by Heritorn interstellar ships and park there until it became clear that the Creamies were closing in on her location. By then a new star would have been scouted and the planet would be moved before the Creamies could arrive. On several occasions they weren't quite fast enough to escape advance Creamy forces, but for as warlike as the Creamies were in comparison to the Heritorns the Heritorns were easily the more resourceful and technologically advanced of the two races. Though Heritorns couldn't reproduce fast enough to engage the Creamies in all-out war, they did develop technologies that were instrumental in the defense of Herta itself. Dark jump missiles outfitted to Herta's orbital defenses are now designed simply to eject unwanted visitors into deep space, but during the conflicts Herta had with the Creamies, they would send Creamy vessels directly into the chromosphere of Herta's original sun.

There was one occasion when Herta jumped away from the Creamies into an already occupied system, falling into an orbit occupied by Earth. They were quickly spotted by the Venusian people already living in the system, and though first contact was tense, the Heritorns were pleased to note that the Venusians were nothing like the xenocidal Creamies. Relations were formed, information was exchanged, but after a sadly brief period the Heritorns discovered that Venus was already known to the Creamies and a large-scale eradication fleet was already on its way. The Heritorns offered to help the Venusians flee, but Venusian technology was not sufficient to allow the planet to be moved without severely damaging the biosphere, and Venusian society maintained that all Venusians were honor-bound to stand in defense of their existence and therefore none could join the Heritorns as they departed. They did, however, provide Herta with a complete detailed history of their civilization and world before Herta jumped away. Herta's presence in the system had only one lasting effect, that of subtly shifting the orbital trajectory of a large asteroid that went on to impact the third planet from the star, leading to the mass extinction of several large animal families.

Eventually the Heritorns enabled a plan to further reduce the likelihood that they would ever be detected by the Creamies and began construction of an artificial sky over the surface of the planet that would enable them to jump into interstellar space without damaging the atmosphere or ecosystems of the planet at large. The undertaking took nearly two centuries but in the end Herta was able to leap into deep space where it remained undiscovered by the Creamies until Humanity wiped them from existence. During this first dark epoch even Heritorn vessels had an incredibly difficult time finding the planet, despite being in actual communication with it, a problem that was eventually rectified by the the entanglement and subsequent Continuous Aspect of The Sister.