Beamen

Beamen are perhaps the most human-like alien species in the ULE, but they are still somewhat unique. They are almost entirely covered in feathers, with scales on their hands, feet, and around their mouth. They have long feathers on the back of their heads, as well as small ‘wings’ on their wrists and feather fans on the end of their tails. Their tails are stiff and rodlike, and can move somewhat from side to side, but not up and down. They use this side-to-side motion to expertly balance their unwieldy legs. Though note their tails can move up when their torso moves forward and down, and vice versa; their bodies are a bit like modified seesaws in that way.

Beamen are digitigrade, meaning they walk on their toes instead of their whole feet. Unlike humans, who have five digits on each hand or foot, beamen only have four digits. In their feet, only three of these digits are actually walked on; one is small and vestigial. Despite appearing to have a beak, their snout and lips are soft and they have many sharp teeth.

(pictured: a Xa'ey beaman.)

Modern beamen are classified as Xenodinosaurian sapiens. They belong to the subfamily Neandoraptoras, a group of extremely intelligent dromaeosaur-like animals that regularly use tools. Though fossil evidence is extremely limited, genetic evidence suggests they split off from the rest of the lineage 8 million years ago, suddenly evolving a vertical torso instead of a horizontal one.

Why this happened is completely unknown, but it is known to have given them an edge over their relatives, as it gave them the ability to accurately throw weapons like spears at prey.

Sometime around 5-7 million years ago they are thought to have mastered fire. The last common ancestor of all beamen lived around 3 million years ago, so it’s thought that they started to migrate around the world at that time. By 2 million years ago, beamen were present in every ecosystem on the planet, and in that 2 million years, they have gained extensive knowledge of themselves and their environment.

Beamen physiology is so different to humans because they are not mammals, but effectively dinosaurs. For example, unlike mammals, they do not have breasts or nipples; their young is developed enough at hatching to eat hard food. Their bones are somewhat hollow- not as hollow as bird’s bones, but still less dense than mammal bones. Within the hollow parts of these bones run a system of air sacs connected to the lungs that make breathing much more efficient.

Instead of a true stomach, they have a sort of gizzard, which contains stones that helps digest their food. Thus, the first treatment tried for beaman digestive issues is always for them to eat rocks. Because they are not mammals, beamen do not have a uterus. Instead, they have an oviduct which produces hard-shelled eggs.

(pictured: a Lo Lo beaman running. He is male, and his summer coat is present. When beamen run, they tend to lean forward like this to take full advantage of the swinging motion of their long tail. They might look impressive, but they can't run as fast nor for as long as humans do.)

Beamen are carnivores, with meat making up roughly 60% of their diet. They can eat and digest all sorts of meats, including regular meat, fish, and many different kinds of arthropods.

They also eat eggs, which are numerous on their planet. They have a limited ability to digest plant matter, and can’t eat leafy vegetables or sugary fruits, for example, but they do eat tubers, seeds, nuts, legumes, herbs, and less sugary fruits.

Beamen have amazing vocal abilities, and can mimic the sounds of almost every sapient species known. This comes because of their versatile syrinx. Because of their incredible mimicry abilities, they have no problem communicating with other sapient species. They do retain an accent, though, which makes their speech sound sort of like a xylophone.

Their native languages sound like a mixture of birdsong and human wood percussion, and cannot be easily pronounced by other sapient species. Beaman singers are highly sought after in the music industry, but a beaman who is willing to sing commercially and can still sing in their native language is hard to find.

The sexual dimorphism of beaman resembles that of many birds. On average, women are taller, with broader shoulders and wider hips. Men, then, are shorter and thinner. Though, note this is not the rule, but a trend. In summer, when beamen are allosexual, male beamen grow a coat of feathers on their tail, forearms, and neck, which is brightly coloured and attractive to male-liking beamen.

(pictured: two Takha beamen of the same age; on the left, a man, and on the right, a woman.)

Beamen eggs are laid 3 months after conception and hatch 18 months after they’re laid. The resulting chick is fat and unwieldy, with a proportionally large head.

They begin life devoid of feathers; those grow in a few days or weeks after they hatch. Their first coat of feathers is white, and their eyes are grey. This chick is physically and mentally equivalent to a human 3-year-old, and will start learning to walk and talk only minutes after it is born.

As the years pass, a beaman’s feathers and eyes will start to take on colour; specifically, the colour of their surroundings. A beaman that spends a lot of time in water will slowly become blue, a beaman living in the forest will become green, a desert beaman sandy brown.

Beamen, unlike humans, become mentally, physically and sexually mature at the same time; usually around 20 years old. At this point, their feather colour will make for effective camouflage in their environment. Though, it will not change if they move to a different environment, so a beaman that grows up in a forest environment and then moves to a desert will still remain green, for example.

In summer, a mature male beaman will grow brightly coloured feathers from their forearms, tail, and head. This is known as the summer coat. The colour of the summer coat is also taken from a beaman’s surroundings, though it is often a different colour than their main coat of feathers.

For example, a green forest beaman’s summer coat may be red to match the wildflowers, or a brown desert beaman’s summer coat may be blue to match the sky.

This sexual maturity at 20 years old- a sort of puberty- is a very unique one. Before this puberty, beamen have no biological sex- no sex chromosomes, no genitalia. Like many Pennacertian dinosaurs, the only genitalia they are born with are ovaries.

A few years before their sexual maturity, they finally enter puberty and start developing their sexual characteristics. Which sex they are is determined by the ratio of beamen with different sexes they encounter in their childhood. If they have encountered more males and less females, they will become female, and vice versa.

Interestingly, males still retain their ovaries, though they can’t be naturally used.

Of course, gender is still separate from sex, and the gender of a beaman largely depends on their cultural concepts of what gender is.

While many beamen cultures have a similar concept of gender to humans and have male, female, and gender neutral pronouns, other cultures have the same pronouns for everybody, or develop pronouns based on other things, like social status or age.

As beamen reach their old age, around 90-100 years old, they don’t noticeably change as much as they did when they were adolescent. They may stoop, but their feathers don’t grey and their wrinkles are hidden behind their feather coat. A healthy beaman may live to the age of 130, and the longest lived beaman ever recorded lived to 180 years old.

Beamen are seasonally asexual, meaning like many bird species on Earth, they only feel sexual attraction in one season- in this case, summer. The rest of the year, they will not feel any need for sex, nor will they see other beamen as attractive. In summer, sexually mature males grow a coat of brightly coloured feathers known as the summer coat. This coat of feathers evolved to be attractive to male-liking beamen, and bigger and brighter summer coats are usually considered more attractive.

Beamen are not a monogamous species, and so do not take one partner for life. Nor do they naturally have a concept of romance and courting. In every known beaman culture, these are two almost universal rules. However, beamen raised in a different culture than their traditional ones may adopt monogamy and romance.

In their traditional cultures, during summer, a group of beamen of a similar age will spend the night together. This often takes place after summer fertility festivals. When eggs are laid, they are deposited in a communal egg building with no distinguishing between whose eggs are whose.