DShomshak

This month's Scientific American has a brief article on the latest failure of an experiment to detect Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, currently the theorists' favorite candidate for Dark Matter. The simplest, most straightforward attempts to extend the Standard Model of physics predict the Big Bang should have produced scads of WIMPs, which should then condense in clouds that have just the results observed for Dark Matter. Except, the experiments that should detect these hypothesized WIMPs. don't. Theorists are flummoxed. Numerous explanations are proposed.
 
There's also a feature article on the subsurface ocean of Enceladus. It's been mapped through its affect on Enceladus' gravitational field. Moreover, the jets of water vapor from Enceladus' south pole have been fingered as the source of silica nanoparticles collected by one of the Cassini probe's instruments. These nanoparticles can only be made by hydrothermal vents, like those on Earth, but jetting into an ocean a little more alkaline and a little less salty than our own. Still, if you transplanted a hydrothermal vent ecosystem from Earth to Enceladus, it could survive.
 
It's a really clever bit of detective work.
 
Dean Shomshak

This month's Scientific American has a brief article on the latest failure of an experiment to detect Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, currently the theorists' favorite candidate for Dark Matter. The simplest, most straightforward attempts to extend the Standard Model of physics predict the Big Bang should have produced scads of WIMPs, which should then condense in clouds that have just the results observed for Dark Matter. Except, the experiments that should detect these hypothesized WIMPs. don't. Theorists are flummoxed. Numerous explanations are proposed.
 
There's also a feature article on the subsurface ocean of Enceladus. It's been mapped through its affect on Enceladus' gravitational field. Moreover, the jets of water vapor from Enceladus' south pole have been fingered as the source of silica nanoparticles collected by one of the Cassini probe's instruments. These nanoparticles can only be made by hydrothermal vents, like those on Earth, but jetting into an ocean a little more alkaline and a little less salty than our own. Still, if you transplanted a hydrothermal vent ecosystem from Earth to Enceladus, it could survive.
 
It's a really clever bit of detective work.
 
Dean Shomshak

Today, the NPR program All Things Considered had a brief story about Lyman-Alpha Blobs. Yes, that's an actual astronomical term: these clouds of gas, bigger than galaxies, glow ultraviolet in a Lyman-Alpha spectrum, and they are blobs. Very, very big blobs -- bigger than galaxies. Some astronomers figured out what makes one of these blobs glow. It contains a pair of galaxies undergoing crazy intense bursts of star formation. The radiation from all these hot young stars makes the gas of the blob glow, while dust in the galaxies and the surrounding gas makes the galaxies themselves harder to see. The astronomer interviewed compared the effect to a streetlight in a fog. You can see the wide area of light but the light itself hardly stands out.
 
Dean Shomshak

Today, the NPR program All Things Considered had a brief story about Lyman-Alpha Blobs. Yes, that's an actual astronomical term: these clouds of gas, bigger than galaxies, glow ultraviolet in a Lyman-Alpha spectrum, and they are blobs. Very, very big blobs -- bigger than galaxies. Some astronomers figured out what makes one of these blobs glow. It contains a pair of galaxies undergoing crazy intense bursts of star formation. The radiation from all these hot young stars makes the gas of the blob glow, while dust in the galaxies and the surrounding gas makes the galaxies themselves harder to see. The astronomer interviewed compared the effect to a streetlight in a fog. You can see the wide area of light but the light itself hardly stands out.
 
Dean Shomshak

Today, the NPR program All Things Considered had a brief story about Lyman-Alpha Blobs. Yes, that's an actual astronomical term: these clouds of gas, bigger than galaxies, glow ultraviolet in a Lyman-Alpha spectrum, and they are blobs. Very, very big blobs -- bigger than galaxies. Some astronomers figured out what makes one of these blobs glow. It contains a pair of galaxies undergoing crazy intense bursts of star formation. The radiation from all these hot young stars makes the gas of the blob glow, while dust in the galaxies and the surrounding gas makes the galaxies themselves harder to see. The astronomer interviewed compared the effect to a streetlight in a fog. You can see the wide area of light but the light itself hardly stands out.
 
Dean Shomshak

More on Proxima B.  Atmosphere and liquid water possible, probably tidally locked, high radiation exposure.  Excellent candidate for invasion.

The paper behind this just came out in Nature. Really nice result. A bright nova (V1213 Centauri, IIRC) was in one of the OGLE fields, which are observed several times a week with dedicated instruments in order to catch gravitational lensing events. So they have extensive monitoring of the star over 2009-2016, and the big outburst was in the middle of that. Behavior of the nova definitely changed after the big outburst, and it did so in general agreement with overall theories of how novae work. I expect bigger scientific payoff when more analysis and calculation is done, but this is a really promising event to have observed that thoroughly. It reminds me of the very different "slow nova" system RR Telescopii, which was captured in survey plates for 40+ years prior to the outburst start in 1944.

On All Things Considered a few minutes ago, I heard a brief BBC report about astronomers who saw a nova explosion from the start, and even a little bit before. There've been theories, but apparently this is the first observation that can confirm or deny them. I hope to hear more about this.
 
Dean Shomshak

Iron Maus: Armored political statement. Despite his comedic appearance, Iron Maus is quite serious in his war against corporate dominance and its stranglehold on many endeavors especially the creative fields. And his (Iron Maus is presumed male but no one has seen his true appearance). armor is no joke either and is easily a match for some of the most formidable high tech battlesuits available. 
 

Indeed, the definition seems circular: "All Precursors become peaceful because if they do not, they are not true Precursors."
 
But whatever. I grant you SF writers have done this enough times for it to be considered one of the standard tropes. Just not the inevitable, universal one. And the Aldar still make an interesting commentary on the trope and the trope's underlying assumptions: that "Wisdom/Advancement = Peaceful" and "Wisdom/Advancement = Weakness."
 
Both the Precursors who destroy themselves and the Precursors who are destroyed through pacifism give an element of tragedy to a setting. A third common option seems to be the Precursors who transcend or in some way withdraw from the setting, more or less voluntarily. Such Precursors give a sense of mystery rather than tragedy. Or like the Aldar, no one really knows what happened except they are gone.
 
Dean Shomshak

Here we go: what the Kepler mission was supposed to do.
 
A CATALOG OF KEPLER HABITABLE ZONE EXOPLANET CANDIDATES, submitted to Astrophysical Journal.
 
Twenty prime candidates: confirmed planets, all in the "conservative" (i.e., least optimistic habitable zone definition) HZ, planets with radii less than twice that of Earth. Another hundred candidates (some not yet confirmed) in the more optimistic HZ and accepting any planetary radius. This is out of somewhat more than 4000 total planets/planetary candidates found by Kepler.

The zyradu are part of the background of my Planetary Romance setting, but they are not entirely my creation. Some friends of mine have run a Traveller campaign for decades. However, they dislikes some elements of the setting and rewrote them. Notably, they rewrote the aliens to make them more alien. Really, nothing but the names were left. So the vargr stopped being uplifted wolves and became a powerful species of biology-focused and utterly pragmatic aliens (and a lot weirder looking). When I joined the campaign, I offered some additional cultural detail. When I set out to create my own campaign, I did another rewrite (and changed the name and appearance to avoid confusion), resulting in the zyradu.
 
I'm using them again, under the name Hyadans, for my new Champions campaign.  -- Dean Shomshak
 
 
ZYRADU
 
Biology: The zyradu show many anatomical resemblances to Earthly reptiles. They have an internal skeleton, scaled skin and slitted eyes. They also lay eggs. Zyradu have seven limbs, though: two arms, four legs and a tail that ends in a bone spike. They also have four eyes. One pair of eyes sees colors in bright light, while one sees in dim light. Zyradu skin is colored various shades of blue or purple, from medium hues to nearly black.
 
The average zyradu weighs 200 kg, and 300 kg is not uncommon. Zyradu are never unarmed, since the long, muscular tail can curve over a zyradu’s body to strike a foe in front of the creature. Zyradu warriors sometimes affix a gun or bayonet to their tails, along with whatever weapons they carry in their hands.
 
Zyradu share one trait with pack animals, which hints at their evolutionary past: Relatively few female zyradu bear offspring, but those who do lay five to ten eggs at a time. Most zyradu cultures consider motherhood something best left to professionals. Humans have great difficulty telling male and female zyradu apart. Zyradu practice complete gender equality with no sexual politics, to the extent that they lack gender pronouns. Culturally sensitive aliens refer to zyradu as “it,” like the zyradu themselves. Zyradu have no nudity taboo, but may wear clothing for warmth, protection, or because pockets are useful.
 
Culture: Encountering the zyradu gave humanity its first hint about just how inhuman aliens might be. Zyradu lack emotion. They show physical drives to survive, mate and protect their progeny, but no love, no hate, no loyalty, anger, fear or joy. In the most general terms, zyradu seek their own best advantage, balancing what they hope to gain against the risk they must undertake, like the ideal rational actors of classical economics.
 
Zyradu recognize that no one can possess perfect information about the profit, loss and risk of every situation, especially about the long-term consequences of actions. Like humans, therefore, they form ideologies to guide their choices. Each zyradu ideology constitutes a guess about the strategy most likely to assure survival for oneself, one’s social group and the zyradu species as a whole. Ideologies do not possess any moral or transcendent aspect: zyradu do not choose an ideology because they believe it is “good.” They believe that a particular strategy optimizes their chances of surviving to propagate their genes and beliefs.
 
These different ideologies or survival strategies form the basis of social or political groupings that human xenologists dub “clans.” The zyradu term combines the connotations of extended family, political party, and even religion, while not precisely meaning any of these things. Zyradu society includes more than a dozen major clans and numerous minor clans and sub-clans. Many of these clan ideologies draw heavily on concepts from biology and ecology.
 
Zyradu clans are partly hereditary. Zyradu seek to indoctrinate their offspring with their own beliefs because people who share one’s beliefs increases one’s chance of implementing that ideology. It’s not unusual, however, for zyradu to switch to a different clan than their parents. In the remote past, groups of zyradu experimented with genetically “hardwiring” clan loyalty into their offspring, but they found that this made their societies too rigid and insular to optimize their survival. Zyradu show about the same degree of loyalty to parents as humans do: While zyradu feel no love for their parents, they do not feel any need to rebel, either.
 
Most zyradu also belong to extended families. These “phratries” combine several generations. Members usually follow the same ideology, but this is not always the case: Some phratries consider it strategically desirable to place members in multiple clans. The relationships between clans and phratries become at least as complicated and subtle as any human politics, and as volatile. Individual zyradu become leaders of their phratries or clans through seniority, skill at administration and persuasion, and interest in taking the job.
 
Nor are clans monolithic. A zyradu who disagrees with the dominant clan in its region may find it expedient to go along with the majority while attempting to nudge other zyradu to its point of view. If a zyradu sees some clear advantage to acting against its ideology, it may choose personal gain over abstract principle. Zyradu of the same clan do not necessarily agree in every detail, either, or feel mindless obedience to the clan’s interests. Zyradu pursue their own interests first. They do not even have words for concepts such as patriotism or loyalty: They must import such words from other species, or translate them as “insanity.” Zyradu can display altruism, though — some ideologies define the individual as a temporary and expendable vehicle for genes and memes.
 
Technology: The zyradu have developed biotechnology to a very great degree. Their “machines” may consist in whole or in part of organisms genetically engineered to perform special functions. For instance, zyradu do not build computers: They grow creatures whose brains are hardwired to perform intricate calculations or operate complex machinery by instinct. The zyradu grow living buildings, factories, vehicles… and weapons. Zyradu warfare relies on synthetic plagues and artificial organisms of varying lethality. Biotechnology cannot replace all “hardtech” — living fusion reactors or starship engines just aren’t possible — but the zyradu possess great expertise at integrating living and nonliving devices.
 
For millennia, the zyradu have genetically engineered themselves, too. However the species began, the average zyradu is now stronger, tougher, and smarter than the average human. Some zyradu diverge wildly from the species norm because of altered genetics. Most zyradu consider genetic alteration and bioengineering completely normal. They do not understand how humans could fight devastating wars over such an issue.
 
Governance: Zyradu space extends more than 200 light-years. No single polity extends further than a single world, however, and few zyradu societies grow even that large. Zyradu space consists of ever-changing alliances and counter-alliances between clans. A clan may wield enough power in a particular region that humans would say it “rules” that world, continent, city-state or neighborhood, but the zyradu would not. Zyradu space is not a government, or even a collection of governments: It is an ecology in which clans and phratries compete and cooperate like different species in a reef or forest. Even a single clan operating on the fringe of human space, however, may command the resources and power of a human planetary government.
 
Interstellar Relations: Different clans hold different attitudes to humanity and other species. Some zyradu want peaceful coexistence with other species; others regard competition as better for zyradu and aliens alike. A small, radical clan advocates the extinction of all other sapients to make more room for zyradu expansion, but the overwhelming majority of zyradu believe this strategy is counterproductive.
 
Zyradu treat other species the same way they treat each other. Often, they do whatever seems expedient to get what they want. Sometimes that means whatever they can get away with. Trust is one of the most valuable commodities for zyradu: Those who must live in close proximity can count on reciprocal self-interest to keep their fellows honest, but how can they prevent robbery, cheating or default if a zyradu can hop on a starship and vanish? Zyradu use elaborate methods to make default more costly than keeping faith. Humans joke that the zyradu invented the escrow company before the wheel. More extreme measures include mutual poisonings, with the antidote delivered when a deal is complete, or floating assassination contracts on anyone who robs or cheats the client. The zyradu who provide such services work very hard to establish their fidelity, for that is their fundamental commodity.
 
Clan alliances sometimes fight wars with other species. Zyradu warfare appalls humans for its cold-blooded pragmatism. These creatures don’t care about dominance displays, honor, revenge, or other intangibles. They also don’t care about mercy, rights, or rules of warfare. Nothing matters except achieving some tangible advantage over a rival (or victim).
 
The zyradu specialize in biowarfare — spreading plagues to remove an enemy’s capacity to resist. If the zyradu think a foe might become useful later on, they create diseases to incapacitate enemies and supply the cure once the enemy surrenders. If zyradu see no potential benefit from an enemy, the plague kills. Fortunately for other species, the far-sighted zyradu rarely decide that today’s enemy is a threat forever and a resource never. Most clans believe that outright attempts at genocide cause more problems than they solve.
 
The causes of wars against aliens range from the obvious — zyradu want to colonize a world but not share it — to the utterly obscure, at least to the aliens involved. To be fair, some of the wars make no sense to the zyradu, either. The zyradu make no secret that they find much of other species’ behavior difficult to understand — especially humans. Wars between zyradu and humans (or other species) usually end when someone buys out one of the attacking clans or finds a way to make the zyradus’ goal too difficult to be worth the effort. Wars between zyradu factions tend to move in slow motion, as the members of each participating clan ponder each new development and recalculate their own risks and interests.
 
Much about zyradu society and politics remains puzzling to humans, though zyradu themselves insist (of course) that their societies are entirely rational and therefore entirely comprehensible. Other species do not understand zyradu culture because other species are not rational. Individual zyradu possess different sets of information to guide their decision-making, however, and this leads to inevitable disagreement and in some cases to error and less than optimal survival strategies, or even different standards of what constitutes “survival.” Xenologists caution humans to tread cautiously and to avoid reading human motives and viewpoints into zyradu societies.
 
CLANS
At least half of all zyradu merely ally with whatever faction seems strongest or pays best. They desert when they find a better deal. These “Opportunist” zyradu display no loyalty to each other, either — only to their phratry.
 
Many of the clan names refer to biological, ecological or evolutionary concepts — a link to the zyradu’s awesomely advanced biological science. Clans known to humans include:
 
CLONAL MONAD: These zyradu form hive-mind societies in isolation even from other zyradu. Their hives often live in space colonies.
 
COERCIVE GARDENER: These zyradu advocate conquering other species as a means of managing them and, in the long run, assimilating them into zyradu society. When zyradu control all sentient life, other species cannot threaten zyradu survival.
 
COMMENSAL ADAPTER: This clan advocates cooperation with other sentient species for mutual benefit. These zyradu point out the many instances of cooperation between species in every planet’s ecosystem. The Commensal Adapters chiefly interact with humanity through trade, leading some humans to call them “Commercial Adapters” instead.
 
COMPETITIVE SELECTOR: This clan advocates war against other species to winnow out weak societies, both zyradu and alien. The Competitive Selectors think the zyradu can out-compete other sapient species and displace them from their worlds.
 
DISCRETE GENOME: These zyradu oppose any cooperation with other sapients and advocate strict isolationist policies. They would use force, if necessary, to keep other sapients at a distance and prevent contamination from non-zyradu cultures. The Discrete Genome also tries to prevent species contamination between biospheres.
 
IMMORTAL: A defunct clan from zyradu history. About 15,000 years ago, a group of zyradu created offspring who never grew old. In a matter of centuries, the immortals achieved immense influence over zyradu society through sheer accumulation of resources. The Immortals dominated the zyradu for millennia in a stultifying period that many zyradu now regard as a dark age. The Immortals did not make more of their kind because they had no need for offspring to carry on their genes or beliefs, and every other Immortal was a competitor. Over the millennia, the Immortals died by mishap or assassination, or they retreated into ultra-secure, self-sufficient bunkers. Few of them remain active and they wield no great influence in zyradu space. (However, they gave ideas to the nivoncoli who became the Owners of the Conglomerate.)
 
IMMUNAL EXTINCTION: This radical clan seeks to annihilate all species, sapient or otherwise, that could threaten zyradu survival. Other zyradu periodically suppress the Immunal Extinctionists on the grounds that this clan itself endangered zyradu survival by provoking wars with other species. The clan keeps reappearing, however, as a spontaneous sociobot.
 
MUTAGEN: These zyradu engage in radical genetic experimentation upon themselves in hopes of bypassing evolution and finding ways to improve their species. They conduct similar experiments upon other species too, including other sapients when they can get away with it. Mutagens believe that a more powerful genetic science increases the zyradu’s power and safety in the long run, even if it costs the lives of individuals — preferably not themselves, of course.
 
SAPIENT CLADE: These zyradu promote social and biological diversity among sentient life. They think diversity confers flexibility and rapid innovation, and this in turn brings strength and promotes survival. The Sapient Clade believes in protecting endangered cultures — even non-zyradu cultures — just like endangered species. Who knows what gene or meme might become useful at a later time?
 
SLAVER: This small clan rules and exploits a species called the r’yax. The Slavers began as a Commensal Adapter group that tried to accelerate the r’yax’s technological development and ended up conquering them. For their own safety, the Slavers cannot release the vengeful r’yax. The Slavers point out, though, that parasitism is one of the most successful of all ecological strategies. There may be other Slaver clans in the depths of zyradu space.
 
STEEL INTEGRAL: These zyradu pursue hardtech instead of biotechnology. They place particular emphasis on bionics as a way to combine the strengths of zyradu and machine. Steel Integral members can hold any other ideology as well, but they agree that technological development forms the most important strategy for their species’ survival and growth.
 
SYMBIONT VOID: This clan eschews planets to live in mobile space habitats. It also seeks to incorporate other species into the clan society. Humans know little about the Symbiont Void.
 
Humans perceive two major alliances or super-clans in zyradu culture, which they call simply “Clan Group A” and “Clan Group B.” Clan Group A generally takes an aggressive posture to other species. Clan Group B generally advocates some form of peaceful coexistence. The Coercive Gardeners and Competitive Selectors are bulwarks of Clan Group A, while the Commensal Adapters and Sapient Clade lead Clan Group B.
 
Other clans remain neutral or make temporary alliances based on shared interests. For instance, Symbiont Void zyradu usually side with Clan Group B, but they can also work with the Coercive Gardeners if that seems like the best way to increase the species diversity of their space habitats. Conversely, the Discrete Genome sometimes sides with Clan Group B if they think a war would increase contact with another species.
 
ZYRADU RACIAL PACKAGE DEAL
 
Ability                                                                                                                                     Cost
+5 STR                                                                                                                                    5
+3 CON                                                                                                                                  6
+3 INT                                                                                                                                    3
-6 COM                                                                                                                                  -3
Tail: Extra Limbs, Intrinsic (+1/4), No Manipulation (-1/4)                                                       5
Tail: 1d6 HKA                                                                                                                        15
Tough Skin: 2 PD, 2 ED Armor                                                                                               6
+3” Running                                                                                                                             6
 
Disadvantages                                                                                                                       Value
Psychological Limitation: Lack of Emotion, Driven by Self-Interest and Abstract Philosophy (Common, Strong) -15
 
Total Cost of Package:                                                                                                          28

The nivoncoli also come from the background of my Planetary Romance campaign. They were fairly important in the backstory of the focus planet, Sard, because during the war between Earth and the Conglomerate, mercenaries working for the Transcendent Orodosheth abducted/destroyed the most tech-centered human colonies. This was an important factor in turning Sard into a Planet of Adventure instead of a "normal" colony world.
 
The nivoncoli were also a bit more playable than the inhuman zyradu. Their psychology had quirks instead of being deeply alien. Nobody chose to play a nivoncoli, but the option and the Package Deal were there.
 
(Oh, and this was all 5th edition, if that wasn't obvious before.)
 
 
NIVONCOLI
 
Biology: Nivoncoli look like humanoid antelopes. They are tall and slender, often topping two meters, with short, sleek fur mottled in various shades from white to brown. A nivoncoli has a long, narrow head with widely spaced eyes and short antlers. They have very poor depth perception but a wide angle of vision. Nivoncoli are completely herbivorous.
 
By their own account, the proto-nivoncoli lived in a desert environment with scattered and intermittent food sources. The sporadic food supply created a social hierarchy more like pack hunters than the usual grazer. When a herd converged on a food supply, the alpha male and female ate first, followed by their offspring; then the beta pairs and their offspring, and then the betas distributed food to their own subordinates. Tool use began with piling earth and dung to increase the growth of an important food-plant: Unlike humans, the nivoncoli invented agriculture before fire or language.
 
Like Earth mammals, nivoncoli give birth to “live” offspring rather than eggs, but they feed their young regurgitated food rather than suckling them. Young nivoncoli can crawl within hours of birth and walk within days.
 
Culture: For millions of years, proto-nivoncoli culture centered on finding highly localized patches of food plants, tending them to increase production, and protecting them from rival herds. The result was a species obsessed with territory and property. A nivoncoli’s status is directly based on quantity of possessions. Sapience and civilization merely abstracted the notion of property from food plants to land, money, stock options, art collections, scientific knowledge, or anything else for which “more” and “less” are meaningful. Status competition takes the form of “property” displays. For instance, a nivoncoli might respond to a display of great wealth with a counter-display of encyclopedic knowledge, no matter how trivial the subject: The object is simply to show I have more of something than you do. “Gifts” — from food to portrayal in a work of art — create a relationship of client and patron that can only be countered by some other sort of gift in return.
 
The notion of “herd” also became abstracted from its roots in kinship. A nivoncoli “herd” can be a business, a university department, an artistic movement, or any other grouping based on common property, activities or interests. Kinship bonds remain very strong for most nivoncoli, though.
 
To humans, nivoncoli seem like natural businessmen, assiduous both as managers and employees. Millions of years of pre-sapience agriculture locked in the idea that if you have an asset, you make it grow and use it to attract subordinates. Millennia of civilization and star travel led to the Conglomerate, a loose alliance of nivoncoli magnates whose wealth dwarfs even the largest human megacorporations. Each member of this “herd” owns multiple planets outright and claims millions of other nivoncoli as client-employees. The Owners, who are also called the Transcendents, strive to increase their holdings and status in a competition that no longer bears the slightest meaning to anyone except them. Their schemes play out over decades or centuries, since the Owners long ago hired zyradu geneticists to make them immortal. The multi-species world Trinicus is the closest Conglomerate-owned world to Earth.
 
The Mahal are a less exalted nivoncoli culture. These nivoncoli cut themselves loose from planets long ago to live in self-sufficient asteroid or O’Neill colonies. The latest development in this society is the construction of gigantic planoform ships so the Mahal can “graze” from star to star as opportunity beckons. The first human explorer to meet the Mahal gave them that name because the domes and spires of their ornate spaceship reminded him of the Taj Mahal.
 
Over the millennia, the nivoncoli built many other societies. These are too far away to interact much with humans, though. Humans know the nivoncoli chiefly through the Conglomerate and the Mahal. Nivoncoli space is at least 200 light-years in diameter and encompasses hundreds of worlds and numerous client species.
 
Technology: This race has highly advanced technology that it applies on a massive scale. Kiloscale constructions — huge starships, space colonies, arcologies — are commonplace for the Conglomerate and Mahal, while Conglomerate systems often show megascale engineering such as space elevators, ring cities, and even Banks orbitals. Arid nivoncoli worlds sport planet-girdling canals straight out of early human fantasies about Mars.
 
As biologists, the nivoncoli are second only to the zyradu, and they might surpass them as terraformers. Zyradu scientists may have a better understanding of ecology in detail, but nivoncoli ecological engineers know how to make a biosphere profitable. With the (important) exception of the Transcendents, the nivoncoli never seem to have felt much desire to engineer themselves — just their crops.
 
The nivoncoli are masters of the very small as well as the very large. They have better nanotechnology than anyone else within a few hundred light-years. Both the Mahal and the Conglomerate sometimes plant a “seed” of micro-machines in an asteroid to replicate and convert the raw substance into refined metals and volatiles or even complete starships or sections of an O’Neill colony. The microfacs used in Meroë are based on nivoncoli technology, though much cruder.
 
Just about everyone has experience with nivoncoli technology through the Conglomerate. The hyper-corporation sets up factories on every world that allows it entry to build anything people are willing to buy, from starships to salt shakers. Conglomerate technology is advanced for humans but merely average for the nivoncoli themselves. Anything built by the Conglomerate is sure to be sturdy, reliable and easy to use.
 
Governance: Conglomerate and Mahal societies are built around patron-client relationships. Much of nivoncoli law and government takes the form of personal contracts, spelling out what a client owes his or her patron and what the patron may expect in return. In the Conglomerate, hierarchies of patron and client become almost feudal: Owners grant their primary clients the right to take clients of their own, and to set rules for anything the Owner does not care to define. A typical Conglomerate nivoncoli, therefore, may live under three or four levels of contractual obligation from Owner down to immediate manager. The Mahal organize as stockholder republics (in fact, they gave humanity the model for such governments) with each colony or starship administered by a board of directors that acts as collective patron to the community. In a nivoncoli university (probably chartered under a Conglomerate Owner), students are clients of their teachers and not only pay them directly, they might assist with anything from research to building the teacher’s house. The teachers pay a cut to their department head and supply other favors. In general, for any nivoncoli society — from a military force to a hobby club — the most prestigious member (however that’s defined) takes the role of patron and sets the rules for subordinates. Some distant nivoncoli societies have evolved impersonal, universal codes of laws by abstracting the notion of “patron” to the state as a whole.
 
Interstellar Relations: The Conglomerate is far and away the most powerful alien polity near the Terran Sphere. It’s also the one with the most involvement in human affairs. Various Transcendents own banks, factories and other businesses on every developed world; sometimes openly, sometimes hidden behind layers of holding companies. The Conglomerate owns a great deal of property in the territories of the surellans, zyradu and every other advanced race within several hundred light-years. The Conglomerate extends further than most societies manage because it isn’t a unified government, and its true chief commodities are knowledge and capital.
 
Several alien races are now clients to individual Owners, perpetually paying back debts incurred centuries before. The Transcendent Orodosheth owns the sakaryans’ world and uses them as favored minions and mercenaries. He also owns Trinicus. Orodosheth’s rival Ishalethon virtually owned the surellans. The surellans attacked Earth in hopes they could pay off their debts with a planet’s worth of loot. Neither the surellans nor humans yet know whether the war was really the surellans’ own idea, or whether Ishalethon hoped to extend his reach to Earth — or whether Orodosheth planted the idea so he could sell the UN a battle fleet without anyone caring too much about the fine print. When humanity learned how the Conglomerate operates, the result was the Corporate Rebellion and the World Governance Board takeover. After that, the WGB prevented any Owner from gaining too much power on any human world; but the Transcendents are patient… and they still own large sectors of the economy on every developed world.
 
The Mahal inspire less anxiety among humans and other races, because they have no desire to claim territory. All of space is theirs already. These nivoncoli trade their technology for rare elements such as vanadium or chromium — about the only thing they can’t make for themselves. The wandering Mahal occasionally turn pirate if they think a settlement is too weak to put up a fight, and the nivoncoli expect never to pass by again. Most Mahal are content to sell a consignment of starships, medical nanobots, or whatever, and move on. Some Mahal space colonies conduct steady trade with the Terran Sphere. Mahal colony-ships move freely through the Terran Sphere, “grazing” on Oort clouds and uninhabited star systems, because nobody can stop them.
 
Nivoncoli relations with the zyradu are as subtle and complicated as everything involving those emotionless masters of biotechnology. Most zyradu don’t care much about hardtech, but have no objection to the Conglomerate or Mahal making whatever they need. On the other hand, the zyradu also have no shame about defaulting on debts, and the nivoncoli don’t dare press too hard: the zyradu can fight back too well. Not a few nivoncoli also make their wealth as vendors for zyradu biotechnology, since people of most species prefer to deal with middlemen than with the mercurial and ruthless zyradu themselves.
 
On a personal level, nivoncoli tend to be unfriendly to members of other species: An alien is about as far “outside the herd” as possible. Personal experience can overcome this instinctive hostility, though. Nivoncoli who associate with aliens in a company, hobby group, or other shared activity often come to feel loyalty and affection for members of this synthetic “herd,” no matter what their species.
 
NIVONCOLI RACIAL PACKAGE DEAL
 
Ability                                                                                                                                     Cost
+3 DEX                                                                                                                                   9
-2 BODY                                                                                                                                 -4
+3” Running                                                                                                                             6
Angled Eyes: Increased Arc of Perception (240 Degrees) with Sight Group                              5
Keen Nose: Discriminatory on Taste/Smell                                                                                5         
Sharp Senses: +2 PER with All Sense Groups                                                                          6
 
Disadvantages                                                                                                                       Value
Physical Limitation: Poor Depth Perception, doubled Range Penalties (Infrequently, Greatly
            Limiting)                                                                                                                       -10
Psychological Limitation: Acquisitive (Common)                                                                        -10
 
Total Cost of Package:                                                                                                            7

The zyradu are part of the background of my Planetary Romance setting, but they are not entirely my creation. Some friends of mine have run a Traveller campaign for decades. However, they dislikes some elements of the setting and rewrote them. Notably, they rewrote the aliens to make them more alien. Really, nothing but the names were left. So the vargr stopped being uplifted wolves and became a powerful species of biology-focused and utterly pragmatic aliens (and a lot weirder looking). When I joined the campaign, I offered some additional cultural detail. When I set out to create my own campaign, I did another rewrite (and changed the name and appearance to avoid confusion), resulting in the zyradu.
 
I'm using them again, under the name Hyadans, for my new Champions campaign.  -- Dean Shomshak
 
 
ZYRADU
 
Biology: The zyradu show many anatomical resemblances to Earthly reptiles. They have an internal skeleton, scaled skin and slitted eyes. They also lay eggs. Zyradu have seven limbs, though: two arms, four legs and a tail that ends in a bone spike. They also have four eyes. One pair of eyes sees colors in bright light, while one sees in dim light. Zyradu skin is colored various shades of blue or purple, from medium hues to nearly black.
 
The average zyradu weighs 200 kg, and 300 kg is not uncommon. Zyradu are never unarmed, since the long, muscular tail can curve over a zyradu’s body to strike a foe in front of the creature. Zyradu warriors sometimes affix a gun or bayonet to their tails, along with whatever weapons they carry in their hands.
 
Zyradu share one trait with pack animals, which hints at their evolutionary past: Relatively few female zyradu bear offspring, but those who do lay five to ten eggs at a time. Most zyradu cultures consider motherhood something best left to professionals. Humans have great difficulty telling male and female zyradu apart. Zyradu practice complete gender equality with no sexual politics, to the extent that they lack gender pronouns. Culturally sensitive aliens refer to zyradu as “it,” like the zyradu themselves. Zyradu have no nudity taboo, but may wear clothing for warmth, protection, or because pockets are useful.
 
Culture: Encountering the zyradu gave humanity its first hint about just how inhuman aliens might be. Zyradu lack emotion. They show physical drives to survive, mate and protect their progeny, but no love, no hate, no loyalty, anger, fear or joy. In the most general terms, zyradu seek their own best advantage, balancing what they hope to gain against the risk they must undertake, like the ideal rational actors of classical economics.
 
Zyradu recognize that no one can possess perfect information about the profit, loss and risk of every situation, especially about the long-term consequences of actions. Like humans, therefore, they form ideologies to guide their choices. Each zyradu ideology constitutes a guess about the strategy most likely to assure survival for oneself, one’s social group and the zyradu species as a whole. Ideologies do not possess any moral or transcendent aspect: zyradu do not choose an ideology because they believe it is “good.” They believe that a particular strategy optimizes their chances of surviving to propagate their genes and beliefs.
 
These different ideologies or survival strategies form the basis of social or political groupings that human xenologists dub “clans.” The zyradu term combines the connotations of extended family, political party, and even religion, while not precisely meaning any of these things. Zyradu society includes more than a dozen major clans and numerous minor clans and sub-clans. Many of these clan ideologies draw heavily on concepts from biology and ecology.
 
Zyradu clans are partly hereditary. Zyradu seek to indoctrinate their offspring with their own beliefs because people who share one’s beliefs increases one’s chance of implementing that ideology. It’s not unusual, however, for zyradu to switch to a different clan than their parents. In the remote past, groups of zyradu experimented with genetically “hardwiring” clan loyalty into their offspring, but they found that this made their societies too rigid and insular to optimize their survival. Zyradu show about the same degree of loyalty to parents as humans do: While zyradu feel no love for their parents, they do not feel any need to rebel, either.
 
Most zyradu also belong to extended families. These “phratries” combine several generations. Members usually follow the same ideology, but this is not always the case: Some phratries consider it strategically desirable to place members in multiple clans. The relationships between clans and phratries become at least as complicated and subtle as any human politics, and as volatile. Individual zyradu become leaders of their phratries or clans through seniority, skill at administration and persuasion, and interest in taking the job.
 
Nor are clans monolithic. A zyradu who disagrees with the dominant clan in its region may find it expedient to go along with the majority while attempting to nudge other zyradu to its point of view. If a zyradu sees some clear advantage to acting against its ideology, it may choose personal gain over abstract principle. Zyradu of the same clan do not necessarily agree in every detail, either, or feel mindless obedience to the clan’s interests. Zyradu pursue their own interests first. They do not even have words for concepts such as patriotism or loyalty: They must import such words from other species, or translate them as “insanity.” Zyradu can display altruism, though — some ideologies define the individual as a temporary and expendable vehicle for genes and memes.
 
Technology: The zyradu have developed biotechnology to a very great degree. Their “machines” may consist in whole or in part of organisms genetically engineered to perform special functions. For instance, zyradu do not build computers: They grow creatures whose brains are hardwired to perform intricate calculations or operate complex machinery by instinct. The zyradu grow living buildings, factories, vehicles… and weapons. Zyradu warfare relies on synthetic plagues and artificial organisms of varying lethality. Biotechnology cannot replace all “hardtech” — living fusion reactors or starship engines just aren’t possible — but the zyradu possess great expertise at integrating living and nonliving devices.
 
For millennia, the zyradu have genetically engineered themselves, too. However the species began, the average zyradu is now stronger, tougher, and smarter than the average human. Some zyradu diverge wildly from the species norm because of altered genetics. Most zyradu consider genetic alteration and bioengineering completely normal. They do not understand how humans could fight devastating wars over such an issue.
 
Governance: Zyradu space extends more than 200 light-years. No single polity extends further than a single world, however, and few zyradu societies grow even that large. Zyradu space consists of ever-changing alliances and counter-alliances between clans. A clan may wield enough power in a particular region that humans would say it “rules” that world, continent, city-state or neighborhood, but the zyradu would not. Zyradu space is not a government, or even a collection of governments: It is an ecology in which clans and phratries compete and cooperate like different species in a reef or forest. Even a single clan operating on the fringe of human space, however, may command the resources and power of a human planetary government.
 
Interstellar Relations: Different clans hold different attitudes to humanity and other species. Some zyradu want peaceful coexistence with other species; others regard competition as better for zyradu and aliens alike. A small, radical clan advocates the extinction of all other sapients to make more room for zyradu expansion, but the overwhelming majority of zyradu believe this strategy is counterproductive.
 
Zyradu treat other species the same way they treat each other. Often, they do whatever seems expedient to get what they want. Sometimes that means whatever they can get away with. Trust is one of the most valuable commodities for zyradu: Those who must live in close proximity can count on reciprocal self-interest to keep their fellows honest, but how can they prevent robbery, cheating or default if a zyradu can hop on a starship and vanish? Zyradu use elaborate methods to make default more costly than keeping faith. Humans joke that the zyradu invented the escrow company before the wheel. More extreme measures include mutual poisonings, with the antidote delivered when a deal is complete, or floating assassination contracts on anyone who robs or cheats the client. The zyradu who provide such services work very hard to establish their fidelity, for that is their fundamental commodity.
 
Clan alliances sometimes fight wars with other species. Zyradu warfare appalls humans for its cold-blooded pragmatism. These creatures don’t care about dominance displays, honor, revenge, or other intangibles. They also don’t care about mercy, rights, or rules of warfare. Nothing matters except achieving some tangible advantage over a rival (or victim).
 
The zyradu specialize in biowarfare — spreading plagues to remove an enemy’s capacity to resist. If the zyradu think a foe might become useful later on, they create diseases to incapacitate enemies and supply the cure once the enemy surrenders. If zyradu see no potential benefit from an enemy, the plague kills. Fortunately for other species, the far-sighted zyradu rarely decide that today’s enemy is a threat forever and a resource never. Most clans believe that outright attempts at genocide cause more problems than they solve.
 
The causes of wars against aliens range from the obvious — zyradu want to colonize a world but not share it — to the utterly obscure, at least to the aliens involved. To be fair, some of the wars make no sense to the zyradu, either. The zyradu make no secret that they find much of other species’ behavior difficult to understand — especially humans. Wars between zyradu and humans (or other species) usually end when someone buys out one of the attacking clans or finds a way to make the zyradus’ goal too difficult to be worth the effort. Wars between zyradu factions tend to move in slow motion, as the members of each participating clan ponder each new development and recalculate their own risks and interests.
 
Much about zyradu society and politics remains puzzling to humans, though zyradu themselves insist (of course) that their societies are entirely rational and therefore entirely comprehensible. Other species do not understand zyradu culture because other species are not rational. Individual zyradu possess different sets of information to guide their decision-making, however, and this leads to inevitable disagreement and in some cases to error and less than optimal survival strategies, or even different standards of what constitutes “survival.” Xenologists caution humans to tread cautiously and to avoid reading human motives and viewpoints into zyradu societies.
 
CLANS
At least half of all zyradu merely ally with whatever faction seems strongest or pays best. They desert when they find a better deal. These “Opportunist” zyradu display no loyalty to each other, either — only to their phratry.
 
Many of the clan names refer to biological, ecological or evolutionary concepts — a link to the zyradu’s awesomely advanced biological science. Clans known to humans include:
 
CLONAL MONAD: These zyradu form hive-mind societies in isolation even from other zyradu. Their hives often live in space colonies.
 
COERCIVE GARDENER: These zyradu advocate conquering other species as a means of managing them and, in the long run, assimilating them into zyradu society. When zyradu control all sentient life, other species cannot threaten zyradu survival.
 
COMMENSAL ADAPTER: This clan advocates cooperation with other sentient species for mutual benefit. These zyradu point out the many instances of cooperation between species in every planet’s ecosystem. The Commensal Adapters chiefly interact with humanity through trade, leading some humans to call them “Commercial Adapters” instead.
 
COMPETITIVE SELECTOR: This clan advocates war against other species to winnow out weak societies, both zyradu and alien. The Competitive Selectors think the zyradu can out-compete other sapient species and displace them from their worlds.
 
DISCRETE GENOME: These zyradu oppose any cooperation with other sapients and advocate strict isolationist policies. They would use force, if necessary, to keep other sapients at a distance and prevent contamination from non-zyradu cultures. The Discrete Genome also tries to prevent species contamination between biospheres.
 
IMMORTAL: A defunct clan from zyradu history. About 15,000 years ago, a group of zyradu created offspring who never grew old. In a matter of centuries, the immortals achieved immense influence over zyradu society through sheer accumulation of resources. The Immortals dominated the zyradu for millennia in a stultifying period that many zyradu now regard as a dark age. The Immortals did not make more of their kind because they had no need for offspring to carry on their genes or beliefs, and every other Immortal was a competitor. Over the millennia, the Immortals died by mishap or assassination, or they retreated into ultra-secure, self-sufficient bunkers. Few of them remain active and they wield no great influence in zyradu space. (However, they gave ideas to the nivoncoli who became the Owners of the Conglomerate.)
 
IMMUNAL EXTINCTION: This radical clan seeks to annihilate all species, sapient or otherwise, that could threaten zyradu survival. Other zyradu periodically suppress the Immunal Extinctionists on the grounds that this clan itself endangered zyradu survival by provoking wars with other species. The clan keeps reappearing, however, as a spontaneous sociobot.
 
MUTAGEN: These zyradu engage in radical genetic experimentation upon themselves in hopes of bypassing evolution and finding ways to improve their species. They conduct similar experiments upon other species too, including other sapients when they can get away with it. Mutagens believe that a more powerful genetic science increases the zyradu’s power and safety in the long run, even if it costs the lives of individuals — preferably not themselves, of course.
 
SAPIENT CLADE: These zyradu promote social and biological diversity among sentient life. They think diversity confers flexibility and rapid innovation, and this in turn brings strength and promotes survival. The Sapient Clade believes in protecting endangered cultures — even non-zyradu cultures — just like endangered species. Who knows what gene or meme might become useful at a later time?
 
SLAVER: This small clan rules and exploits a species called the r’yax. The Slavers began as a Commensal Adapter group that tried to accelerate the r’yax’s technological development and ended up conquering them. For their own safety, the Slavers cannot release the vengeful r’yax. The Slavers point out, though, that parasitism is one of the most successful of all ecological strategies. There may be other Slaver clans in the depths of zyradu space.
 
STEEL INTEGRAL: These zyradu pursue hardtech instead of biotechnology. They place particular emphasis on bionics as a way to combine the strengths of zyradu and machine. Steel Integral members can hold any other ideology as well, but they agree that technological development forms the most important strategy for their species’ survival and growth.
 
SYMBIONT VOID: This clan eschews planets to live in mobile space habitats. It also seeks to incorporate other species into the clan society. Humans know little about the Symbiont Void.
 
Humans perceive two major alliances or super-clans in zyradu culture, which they call simply “Clan Group A” and “Clan Group B.” Clan Group A generally takes an aggressive posture to other species. Clan Group B generally advocates some form of peaceful coexistence. The Coercive Gardeners and Competitive Selectors are bulwarks of Clan Group A, while the Commensal Adapters and Sapient Clade lead Clan Group B.
 
Other clans remain neutral or make temporary alliances based on shared interests. For instance, Symbiont Void zyradu usually side with Clan Group B, but they can also work with the Coercive Gardeners if that seems like the best way to increase the species diversity of their space habitats. Conversely, the Discrete Genome sometimes sides with Clan Group B if they think a war would increase contact with another species.
 
ZYRADU RACIAL PACKAGE DEAL
 
Ability                                                                                                                                     Cost
+5 STR                                                                                                                                    5
+3 CON                                                                                                                                  6
+3 INT                                                                                                                                    3
-6 COM                                                                                                                                  -3
Tail: Extra Limbs, Intrinsic (+1/4), No Manipulation (-1/4)                                                       5
Tail: 1d6 HKA                                                                                                                        15
Tough Skin: 2 PD, 2 ED Armor                                                                                               6
+3” Running                                                                                                                             6
 
Disadvantages                                                                                                                       Value
Psychological Limitation: Lack of Emotion, Driven by Self-Interest and Abstract Philosophy (Common, Strong) -15
 
Total Cost of Package:                                                                                                          28

Indeed, the definition seems circular: "All Precursors become peaceful because if they do not, they are not true Precursors."
 
But whatever. I grant you SF writers have done this enough times for it to be considered one of the standard tropes. Just not the inevitable, universal one. And the Aldar still make an interesting commentary on the trope and the trope's underlying assumptions: that "Wisdom/Advancement = Peaceful" and "Wisdom/Advancement = Weakness."
 
Both the Precursors who destroy themselves and the Precursors who are destroyed through pacifism give an element of tragedy to a setting. A third common option seems to be the Precursors who transcend or in some way withdraw from the setting, more or less voluntarily. Such Precursors give a sense of mystery rather than tragedy. Or like the Aldar, no one really knows what happened except they are gone.
 
Dean Shomshak

The nivoncoli also come from the background of my Planetary Romance campaign. They were fairly important in the backstory of the focus planet, Sard, because during the war between Earth and the Conglomerate, mercenaries working for the Transcendent Orodosheth abducted/destroyed the most tech-centered human colonies. This was an important factor in turning Sard into a Planet of Adventure instead of a "normal" colony world.
 
The nivoncoli were also a bit more playable than the inhuman zyradu. Their psychology had quirks instead of being deeply alien. Nobody chose to play a nivoncoli, but the option and the Package Deal were there.
 
(Oh, and this was all 5th edition, if that wasn't obvious before.)
 
 
NIVONCOLI
 
Biology: Nivoncoli look like humanoid antelopes. They are tall and slender, often topping two meters, with short, sleek fur mottled in various shades from white to brown. A nivoncoli has a long, narrow head with widely spaced eyes and short antlers. They have very poor depth perception but a wide angle of vision. Nivoncoli are completely herbivorous.
 
By their own account, the proto-nivoncoli lived in a desert environment with scattered and intermittent food sources. The sporadic food supply created a social hierarchy more like pack hunters than the usual grazer. When a herd converged on a food supply, the alpha male and female ate first, followed by their offspring; then the beta pairs and their offspring, and then the betas distributed food to their own subordinates. Tool use began with piling earth and dung to increase the growth of an important food-plant: Unlike humans, the nivoncoli invented agriculture before fire or language.
 
Like Earth mammals, nivoncoli give birth to “live” offspring rather than eggs, but they feed their young regurgitated food rather than suckling them. Young nivoncoli can crawl within hours of birth and walk within days.
 
Culture: For millions of years, proto-nivoncoli culture centered on finding highly localized patches of food plants, tending them to increase production, and protecting them from rival herds. The result was a species obsessed with territory and property. A nivoncoli’s status is directly based on quantity of possessions. Sapience and civilization merely abstracted the notion of property from food plants to land, money, stock options, art collections, scientific knowledge, or anything else for which “more” and “less” are meaningful. Status competition takes the form of “property” displays. For instance, a nivoncoli might respond to a display of great wealth with a counter-display of encyclopedic knowledge, no matter how trivial the subject: The object is simply to show I have more of something than you do. “Gifts” — from food to portrayal in a work of art — create a relationship of client and patron that can only be countered by some other sort of gift in return.
 
The notion of “herd” also became abstracted from its roots in kinship. A nivoncoli “herd” can be a business, a university department, an artistic movement, or any other grouping based on common property, activities or interests. Kinship bonds remain very strong for most nivoncoli, though.
 
To humans, nivoncoli seem like natural businessmen, assiduous both as managers and employees. Millions of years of pre-sapience agriculture locked in the idea that if you have an asset, you make it grow and use it to attract subordinates. Millennia of civilization and star travel led to the Conglomerate, a loose alliance of nivoncoli magnates whose wealth dwarfs even the largest human megacorporations. Each member of this “herd” owns multiple planets outright and claims millions of other nivoncoli as client-employees. The Owners, who are also called the Transcendents, strive to increase their holdings and status in a competition that no longer bears the slightest meaning to anyone except them. Their schemes play out over decades or centuries, since the Owners long ago hired zyradu geneticists to make them immortal. The multi-species world Trinicus is the closest Conglomerate-owned world to Earth.
 
The Mahal are a less exalted nivoncoli culture. These nivoncoli cut themselves loose from planets long ago to live in self-sufficient asteroid or O’Neill colonies. The latest development in this society is the construction of gigantic planoform ships so the Mahal can “graze” from star to star as opportunity beckons. The first human explorer to meet the Mahal gave them that name because the domes and spires of their ornate spaceship reminded him of the Taj Mahal.
 
Over the millennia, the nivoncoli built many other societies. These are too far away to interact much with humans, though. Humans know the nivoncoli chiefly through the Conglomerate and the Mahal. Nivoncoli space is at least 200 light-years in diameter and encompasses hundreds of worlds and numerous client species.
 
Technology: This race has highly advanced technology that it applies on a massive scale. Kiloscale constructions — huge starships, space colonies, arcologies — are commonplace for the Conglomerate and Mahal, while Conglomerate systems often show megascale engineering such as space elevators, ring cities, and even Banks orbitals. Arid nivoncoli worlds sport planet-girdling canals straight out of early human fantasies about Mars.
 
As biologists, the nivoncoli are second only to the zyradu, and they might surpass them as terraformers. Zyradu scientists may have a better understanding of ecology in detail, but nivoncoli ecological engineers know how to make a biosphere profitable. With the (important) exception of the Transcendents, the nivoncoli never seem to have felt much desire to engineer themselves — just their crops.
 
The nivoncoli are masters of the very small as well as the very large. They have better nanotechnology than anyone else within a few hundred light-years. Both the Mahal and the Conglomerate sometimes plant a “seed” of micro-machines in an asteroid to replicate and convert the raw substance into refined metals and volatiles or even complete starships or sections of an O’Neill colony. The microfacs used in Meroë are based on nivoncoli technology, though much cruder.
 
Just about everyone has experience with nivoncoli technology through the Conglomerate. The hyper-corporation sets up factories on every world that allows it entry to build anything people are willing to buy, from starships to salt shakers. Conglomerate technology is advanced for humans but merely average for the nivoncoli themselves. Anything built by the Conglomerate is sure to be sturdy, reliable and easy to use.
 
Governance: Conglomerate and Mahal societies are built around patron-client relationships. Much of nivoncoli law and government takes the form of personal contracts, spelling out what a client owes his or her patron and what the patron may expect in return. In the Conglomerate, hierarchies of patron and client become almost feudal: Owners grant their primary clients the right to take clients of their own, and to set rules for anything the Owner does not care to define. A typical Conglomerate nivoncoli, therefore, may live under three or four levels of contractual obligation from Owner down to immediate manager. The Mahal organize as stockholder republics (in fact, they gave humanity the model for such governments) with each colony or starship administered by a board of directors that acts as collective patron to the community. In a nivoncoli university (probably chartered under a Conglomerate Owner), students are clients of their teachers and not only pay them directly, they might assist with anything from research to building the teacher’s house. The teachers pay a cut to their department head and supply other favors. In general, for any nivoncoli society — from a military force to a hobby club — the most prestigious member (however that’s defined) takes the role of patron and sets the rules for subordinates. Some distant nivoncoli societies have evolved impersonal, universal codes of laws by abstracting the notion of “patron” to the state as a whole.
 
Interstellar Relations: The Conglomerate is far and away the most powerful alien polity near the Terran Sphere. It’s also the one with the most involvement in human affairs. Various Transcendents own banks, factories and other businesses on every developed world; sometimes openly, sometimes hidden behind layers of holding companies. The Conglomerate owns a great deal of property in the territories of the surellans, zyradu and every other advanced race within several hundred light-years. The Conglomerate extends further than most societies manage because it isn’t a unified government, and its true chief commodities are knowledge and capital.
 
Several alien races are now clients to individual Owners, perpetually paying back debts incurred centuries before. The Transcendent Orodosheth owns the sakaryans’ world and uses them as favored minions and mercenaries. He also owns Trinicus. Orodosheth’s rival Ishalethon virtually owned the surellans. The surellans attacked Earth in hopes they could pay off their debts with a planet’s worth of loot. Neither the surellans nor humans yet know whether the war was really the surellans’ own idea, or whether Ishalethon hoped to extend his reach to Earth — or whether Orodosheth planted the idea so he could sell the UN a battle fleet without anyone caring too much about the fine print. When humanity learned how the Conglomerate operates, the result was the Corporate Rebellion and the World Governance Board takeover. After that, the WGB prevented any Owner from gaining too much power on any human world; but the Transcendents are patient… and they still own large sectors of the economy on every developed world.
 
The Mahal inspire less anxiety among humans and other races, because they have no desire to claim territory. All of space is theirs already. These nivoncoli trade their technology for rare elements such as vanadium or chromium — about the only thing they can’t make for themselves. The wandering Mahal occasionally turn pirate if they think a settlement is too weak to put up a fight, and the nivoncoli expect never to pass by again. Most Mahal are content to sell a consignment of starships, medical nanobots, or whatever, and move on. Some Mahal space colonies conduct steady trade with the Terran Sphere. Mahal colony-ships move freely through the Terran Sphere, “grazing” on Oort clouds and uninhabited star systems, because nobody can stop them.
 
Nivoncoli relations with the zyradu are as subtle and complicated as everything involving those emotionless masters of biotechnology. Most zyradu don’t care much about hardtech, but have no objection to the Conglomerate or Mahal making whatever they need. On the other hand, the zyradu also have no shame about defaulting on debts, and the nivoncoli don’t dare press too hard: the zyradu can fight back too well. Not a few nivoncoli also make their wealth as vendors for zyradu biotechnology, since people of most species prefer to deal with middlemen than with the mercurial and ruthless zyradu themselves.
 
On a personal level, nivoncoli tend to be unfriendly to members of other species: An alien is about as far “outside the herd” as possible. Personal experience can overcome this instinctive hostility, though. Nivoncoli who associate with aliens in a company, hobby group, or other shared activity often come to feel loyalty and affection for members of this synthetic “herd,” no matter what their species.
 
NIVONCOLI RACIAL PACKAGE DEAL
 
Ability                                                                                                                                     Cost
+3 DEX                                                                                                                                   9
-2 BODY                                                                                                                                 -4
+3” Running                                                                                                                             6
Angled Eyes: Increased Arc of Perception (240 Degrees) with Sight Group                              5
Keen Nose: Discriminatory on Taste/Smell                                                                                5         
Sharp Senses: +2 PER with All Sense Groups                                                                          6
 
Disadvantages                                                                                                                       Value
Physical Limitation: Poor Depth Perception, doubled Range Penalties (Infrequently, Greatly
            Limiting)                                                                                                                       -10
Psychological Limitation: Acquisitive (Common)                                                                        -10
 
Total Cost of Package:                                                                                                            7

The zyradu are part of the background of my Planetary Romance setting, but they are not entirely my creation. Some friends of mine have run a Traveller campaign for decades. However, they dislikes some elements of the setting and rewrote them. Notably, they rewrote the aliens to make them more alien. Really, nothing but the names were left. So the vargr stopped being uplifted wolves and became a powerful species of biology-focused and utterly pragmatic aliens (and a lot weirder looking). When I joined the campaign, I offered some additional cultural detail. When I set out to create my own campaign, I did another rewrite (and changed the name and appearance to avoid confusion), resulting in the zyradu.
 
I'm using them again, under the name Hyadans, for my new Champions campaign.  -- Dean Shomshak
 
 
ZYRADU
 
Biology: The zyradu show many anatomical resemblances to Earthly reptiles. They have an internal skeleton, scaled skin and slitted eyes. They also lay eggs. Zyradu have seven limbs, though: two arms, four legs and a tail that ends in a bone spike. They also have four eyes. One pair of eyes sees colors in bright light, while one sees in dim light. Zyradu skin is colored various shades of blue or purple, from medium hues to nearly black.
 
The average zyradu weighs 200 kg, and 300 kg is not uncommon. Zyradu are never unarmed, since the long, muscular tail can curve over a zyradu’s body to strike a foe in front of the creature. Zyradu warriors sometimes affix a gun or bayonet to their tails, along with whatever weapons they carry in their hands.
 
Zyradu share one trait with pack animals, which hints at their evolutionary past: Relatively few female zyradu bear offspring, but those who do lay five to ten eggs at a time. Most zyradu cultures consider motherhood something best left to professionals. Humans have great difficulty telling male and female zyradu apart. Zyradu practice complete gender equality with no sexual politics, to the extent that they lack gender pronouns. Culturally sensitive aliens refer to zyradu as “it,” like the zyradu themselves. Zyradu have no nudity taboo, but may wear clothing for warmth, protection, or because pockets are useful.
 
Culture: Encountering the zyradu gave humanity its first hint about just how inhuman aliens might be. Zyradu lack emotion. They show physical drives to survive, mate and protect their progeny, but no love, no hate, no loyalty, anger, fear or joy. In the most general terms, zyradu seek their own best advantage, balancing what they hope to gain against the risk they must undertake, like the ideal rational actors of classical economics.
 
Zyradu recognize that no one can possess perfect information about the profit, loss and risk of every situation, especially about the long-term consequences of actions. Like humans, therefore, they form ideologies to guide their choices. Each zyradu ideology constitutes a guess about the strategy most likely to assure survival for oneself, one’s social group and the zyradu species as a whole. Ideologies do not possess any moral or transcendent aspect: zyradu do not choose an ideology because they believe it is “good.” They believe that a particular strategy optimizes their chances of surviving to propagate their genes and beliefs.
 
These different ideologies or survival strategies form the basis of social or political groupings that human xenologists dub “clans.” The zyradu term combines the connotations of extended family, political party, and even religion, while not precisely meaning any of these things. Zyradu society includes more than a dozen major clans and numerous minor clans and sub-clans. Many of these clan ideologies draw heavily on concepts from biology and ecology.
 
Zyradu clans are partly hereditary. Zyradu seek to indoctrinate their offspring with their own beliefs because people who share one’s beliefs increases one’s chance of implementing that ideology. It’s not unusual, however, for zyradu to switch to a different clan than their parents. In the remote past, groups of zyradu experimented with genetically “hardwiring” clan loyalty into their offspring, but they found that this made their societies too rigid and insular to optimize their survival. Zyradu show about the same degree of loyalty to parents as humans do: While zyradu feel no love for their parents, they do not feel any need to rebel, either.
 
Most zyradu also belong to extended families. These “phratries” combine several generations. Members usually follow the same ideology, but this is not always the case: Some phratries consider it strategically desirable to place members in multiple clans. The relationships between clans and phratries become at least as complicated and subtle as any human politics, and as volatile. Individual zyradu become leaders of their phratries or clans through seniority, skill at administration and persuasion, and interest in taking the job.
 
Nor are clans monolithic. A zyradu who disagrees with the dominant clan in its region may find it expedient to go along with the majority while attempting to nudge other zyradu to its point of view. If a zyradu sees some clear advantage to acting against its ideology, it may choose personal gain over abstract principle. Zyradu of the same clan do not necessarily agree in every detail, either, or feel mindless obedience to the clan’s interests. Zyradu pursue their own interests first. They do not even have words for concepts such as patriotism or loyalty: They must import such words from other species, or translate them as “insanity.” Zyradu can display altruism, though — some ideologies define the individual as a temporary and expendable vehicle for genes and memes.
 
Technology: The zyradu have developed biotechnology to a very great degree. Their “machines” may consist in whole or in part of organisms genetically engineered to perform special functions. For instance, zyradu do not build computers: They grow creatures whose brains are hardwired to perform intricate calculations or operate complex machinery by instinct. The zyradu grow living buildings, factories, vehicles… and weapons. Zyradu warfare relies on synthetic plagues and artificial organisms of varying lethality. Biotechnology cannot replace all “hardtech” — living fusion reactors or starship engines just aren’t possible — but the zyradu possess great expertise at integrating living and nonliving devices.
 
For millennia, the zyradu have genetically engineered themselves, too. However the species began, the average zyradu is now stronger, tougher, and smarter than the average human. Some zyradu diverge wildly from the species norm because of altered genetics. Most zyradu consider genetic alteration and bioengineering completely normal. They do not understand how humans could fight devastating wars over such an issue.
 
Governance: Zyradu space extends more than 200 light-years. No single polity extends further than a single world, however, and few zyradu societies grow even that large. Zyradu space consists of ever-changing alliances and counter-alliances between clans. A clan may wield enough power in a particular region that humans would say it “rules” that world, continent, city-state or neighborhood, but the zyradu would not. Zyradu space is not a government, or even a collection of governments: It is an ecology in which clans and phratries compete and cooperate like different species in a reef or forest. Even a single clan operating on the fringe of human space, however, may command the resources and power of a human planetary government.
 
Interstellar Relations: Different clans hold different attitudes to humanity and other species. Some zyradu want peaceful coexistence with other species; others regard competition as better for zyradu and aliens alike. A small, radical clan advocates the extinction of all other sapients to make more room for zyradu expansion, but the overwhelming majority of zyradu believe this strategy is counterproductive.
 
Zyradu treat other species the same way they treat each other. Often, they do whatever seems expedient to get what they want. Sometimes that means whatever they can get away with. Trust is one of the most valuable commodities for zyradu: Those who must live in close proximity can count on reciprocal self-interest to keep their fellows honest, but how can they prevent robbery, cheating or default if a zyradu can hop on a starship and vanish? Zyradu use elaborate methods to make default more costly than keeping faith. Humans joke that the zyradu invented the escrow company before the wheel. More extreme measures include mutual poisonings, with the antidote delivered when a deal is complete, or floating assassination contracts on anyone who robs or cheats the client. The zyradu who provide such services work very hard to establish their fidelity, for that is their fundamental commodity.
 
Clan alliances sometimes fight wars with other species. Zyradu warfare appalls humans for its cold-blooded pragmatism. These creatures don’t care about dominance displays, honor, revenge, or other intangibles. They also don’t care about mercy, rights, or rules of warfare. Nothing matters except achieving some tangible advantage over a rival (or victim).
 
The zyradu specialize in biowarfare — spreading plagues to remove an enemy’s capacity to resist. If the zyradu think a foe might become useful later on, they create diseases to incapacitate enemies and supply the cure once the enemy surrenders. If zyradu see no potential benefit from an enemy, the plague kills. Fortunately for other species, the far-sighted zyradu rarely decide that today’s enemy is a threat forever and a resource never. Most clans believe that outright attempts at genocide cause more problems than they solve.
 
The causes of wars against aliens range from the obvious — zyradu want to colonize a world but not share it — to the utterly obscure, at least to the aliens involved. To be fair, some of the wars make no sense to the zyradu, either. The zyradu make no secret that they find much of other species’ behavior difficult to understand — especially humans. Wars between zyradu and humans (or other species) usually end when someone buys out one of the attacking clans or finds a way to make the zyradus’ goal too difficult to be worth the effort. Wars between zyradu factions tend to move in slow motion, as the members of each participating clan ponder each new development and recalculate their own risks and interests.
 
Much about zyradu society and politics remains puzzling to humans, though zyradu themselves insist (of course) that their societies are entirely rational and therefore entirely comprehensible. Other species do not understand zyradu culture because other species are not rational. Individual zyradu possess different sets of information to guide their decision-making, however, and this leads to inevitable disagreement and in some cases to error and less than optimal survival strategies, or even different standards of what constitutes “survival.” Xenologists caution humans to tread cautiously and to avoid reading human motives and viewpoints into zyradu societies.
 
CLANS
At least half of all zyradu merely ally with whatever faction seems strongest or pays best. They desert when they find a better deal. These “Opportunist” zyradu display no loyalty to each other, either — only to their phratry.
 
Many of the clan names refer to biological, ecological or evolutionary concepts — a link to the zyradu’s awesomely advanced biological science. Clans known to humans include:
 
CLONAL MONAD: These zyradu form hive-mind societies in isolation even from other zyradu. Their hives often live in space colonies.
 
COERCIVE GARDENER: These zyradu advocate conquering other species as a means of managing them and, in the long run, assimilating them into zyradu society. When zyradu control all sentient life, other species cannot threaten zyradu survival.
 
COMMENSAL ADAPTER: This clan advocates cooperation with other sentient species for mutual benefit. These zyradu point out the many instances of cooperation between species in every planet’s ecosystem. The Commensal Adapters chiefly interact with humanity through trade, leading some humans to call them “Commercial Adapters” instead.
 
COMPETITIVE SELECTOR: This clan advocates war against other species to winnow out weak societies, both zyradu and alien. The Competitive Selectors think the zyradu can out-compete other sapient species and displace them from their worlds.
 
DISCRETE GENOME: These zyradu oppose any cooperation with other sapients and advocate strict isolationist policies. They would use force, if necessary, to keep other sapients at a distance and prevent contamination from non-zyradu cultures. The Discrete Genome also tries to prevent species contamination between biospheres.
 
IMMORTAL: A defunct clan from zyradu history. About 15,000 years ago, a group of zyradu created offspring who never grew old. In a matter of centuries, the immortals achieved immense influence over zyradu society through sheer accumulation of resources. The Immortals dominated the zyradu for millennia in a stultifying period that many zyradu now regard as a dark age. The Immortals did not make more of their kind because they had no need for offspring to carry on their genes or beliefs, and every other Immortal was a competitor. Over the millennia, the Immortals died by mishap or assassination, or they retreated into ultra-secure, self-sufficient bunkers. Few of them remain active and they wield no great influence in zyradu space. (However, they gave ideas to the nivoncoli who became the Owners of the Conglomerate.)
 
IMMUNAL EXTINCTION: This radical clan seeks to annihilate all species, sapient or otherwise, that could threaten zyradu survival. Other zyradu periodically suppress the Immunal Extinctionists on the grounds that this clan itself endangered zyradu survival by provoking wars with other species. The clan keeps reappearing, however, as a spontaneous sociobot.
 
MUTAGEN: These zyradu engage in radical genetic experimentation upon themselves in hopes of bypassing evolution and finding ways to improve their species. They conduct similar experiments upon other species too, including other sapients when they can get away with it. Mutagens believe that a more powerful genetic science increases the zyradu’s power and safety in the long run, even if it costs the lives of individuals — preferably not themselves, of course.
 
SAPIENT CLADE: These zyradu promote social and biological diversity among sentient life. They think diversity confers flexibility and rapid innovation, and this in turn brings strength and promotes survival. The Sapient Clade believes in protecting endangered cultures — even non-zyradu cultures — just like endangered species. Who knows what gene or meme might become useful at a later time?
 
SLAVER: This small clan rules and exploits a species called the r’yax. The Slavers began as a Commensal Adapter group that tried to accelerate the r’yax’s technological development and ended up conquering them. For their own safety, the Slavers cannot release the vengeful r’yax. The Slavers point out, though, that parasitism is one of the most successful of all ecological strategies. There may be other Slaver clans in the depths of zyradu space.
 
STEEL INTEGRAL: These zyradu pursue hardtech instead of biotechnology. They place particular emphasis on bionics as a way to combine the strengths of zyradu and machine. Steel Integral members can hold any other ideology as well, but they agree that technological development forms the most important strategy for their species’ survival and growth.
 
SYMBIONT VOID: This clan eschews planets to live in mobile space habitats. It also seeks to incorporate other species into the clan society. Humans know little about the Symbiont Void.
 
Humans perceive two major alliances or super-clans in zyradu culture, which they call simply “Clan Group A” and “Clan Group B.” Clan Group A generally takes an aggressive posture to other species. Clan Group B generally advocates some form of peaceful coexistence. The Coercive Gardeners and Competitive Selectors are bulwarks of Clan Group A, while the Commensal Adapters and Sapient Clade lead Clan Group B.
 
Other clans remain neutral or make temporary alliances based on shared interests. For instance, Symbiont Void zyradu usually side with Clan Group B, but they can also work with the Coercive Gardeners if that seems like the best way to increase the species diversity of their space habitats. Conversely, the Discrete Genome sometimes sides with Clan Group B if they think a war would increase contact with another species.
 
ZYRADU RACIAL PACKAGE DEAL
 
Ability                                                                                                                                     Cost
+5 STR                                                                                                                                    5
+3 CON                                                                                                                                  6
+3 INT                                                                                                                                    3
-6 COM                                                                                                                                  -3
Tail: Extra Limbs, Intrinsic (+1/4), No Manipulation (-1/4)                                                       5
Tail: 1d6 HKA                                                                                                                        15
Tough Skin: 2 PD, 2 ED Armor                                                                                               6
+3” Running                                                                                                                             6
 
Disadvantages                                                                                                                       Value
Psychological Limitation: Lack of Emotion, Driven by Self-Interest and Abstract Philosophy (Common, Strong) -15
 
Total Cost of Package:                                                                                                          28

The nivoncoli also come from the background of my Planetary Romance campaign. They were fairly important in the backstory of the focus planet, Sard, because during the war between Earth and the Conglomerate, mercenaries working for the Transcendent Orodosheth abducted/destroyed the most tech-centered human colonies. This was an important factor in turning Sard into a Planet of Adventure instead of a "normal" colony world.
 
The nivoncoli were also a bit more playable than the inhuman zyradu. Their psychology had quirks instead of being deeply alien. Nobody chose to play a nivoncoli, but the option and the Package Deal were there.
 
(Oh, and this was all 5th edition, if that wasn't obvious before.)
 
 
NIVONCOLI
 
Biology: Nivoncoli look like humanoid antelopes. They are tall and slender, often topping two meters, with short, sleek fur mottled in various shades from white to brown. A nivoncoli has a long, narrow head with widely spaced eyes and short antlers. They have very poor depth perception but a wide angle of vision. Nivoncoli are completely herbivorous.
 
By their own account, the proto-nivoncoli lived in a desert environment with scattered and intermittent food sources. The sporadic food supply created a social hierarchy more like pack hunters than the usual grazer. When a herd converged on a food supply, the alpha male and female ate first, followed by their offspring; then the beta pairs and their offspring, and then the betas distributed food to their own subordinates. Tool use began with piling earth and dung to increase the growth of an important food-plant: Unlike humans, the nivoncoli invented agriculture before fire or language.
 
Like Earth mammals, nivoncoli give birth to “live” offspring rather than eggs, but they feed their young regurgitated food rather than suckling them. Young nivoncoli can crawl within hours of birth and walk within days.
 
Culture: For millions of years, proto-nivoncoli culture centered on finding highly localized patches of food plants, tending them to increase production, and protecting them from rival herds. The result was a species obsessed with territory and property. A nivoncoli’s status is directly based on quantity of possessions. Sapience and civilization merely abstracted the notion of property from food plants to land, money, stock options, art collections, scientific knowledge, or anything else for which “more” and “less” are meaningful. Status competition takes the form of “property” displays. For instance, a nivoncoli might respond to a display of great wealth with a counter-display of encyclopedic knowledge, no matter how trivial the subject: The object is simply to show I have more of something than you do. “Gifts” — from food to portrayal in a work of art — create a relationship of client and patron that can only be countered by some other sort of gift in return.
 
The notion of “herd” also became abstracted from its roots in kinship. A nivoncoli “herd” can be a business, a university department, an artistic movement, or any other grouping based on common property, activities or interests. Kinship bonds remain very strong for most nivoncoli, though.
 
To humans, nivoncoli seem like natural businessmen, assiduous both as managers and employees. Millions of years of pre-sapience agriculture locked in the idea that if you have an asset, you make it grow and use it to attract subordinates. Millennia of civilization and star travel led to the Conglomerate, a loose alliance of nivoncoli magnates whose wealth dwarfs even the largest human megacorporations. Each member of this “herd” owns multiple planets outright and claims millions of other nivoncoli as client-employees. The Owners, who are also called the Transcendents, strive to increase their holdings and status in a competition that no longer bears the slightest meaning to anyone except them. Their schemes play out over decades or centuries, since the Owners long ago hired zyradu geneticists to make them immortal. The multi-species world Trinicus is the closest Conglomerate-owned world to Earth.
 
The Mahal are a less exalted nivoncoli culture. These nivoncoli cut themselves loose from planets long ago to live in self-sufficient asteroid or O’Neill colonies. The latest development in this society is the construction of gigantic planoform ships so the Mahal can “graze” from star to star as opportunity beckons. The first human explorer to meet the Mahal gave them that name because the domes and spires of their ornate spaceship reminded him of the Taj Mahal.
 
Over the millennia, the nivoncoli built many other societies. These are too far away to interact much with humans, though. Humans know the nivoncoli chiefly through the Conglomerate and the Mahal. Nivoncoli space is at least 200 light-years in diameter and encompasses hundreds of worlds and numerous client species.
 
Technology: This race has highly advanced technology that it applies on a massive scale. Kiloscale constructions — huge starships, space colonies, arcologies — are commonplace for the Conglomerate and Mahal, while Conglomerate systems often show megascale engineering such as space elevators, ring cities, and even Banks orbitals. Arid nivoncoli worlds sport planet-girdling canals straight out of early human fantasies about Mars.
 
As biologists, the nivoncoli are second only to the zyradu, and they might surpass them as terraformers. Zyradu scientists may have a better understanding of ecology in detail, but nivoncoli ecological engineers know how to make a biosphere profitable. With the (important) exception of the Transcendents, the nivoncoli never seem to have felt much desire to engineer themselves — just their crops.
 
The nivoncoli are masters of the very small as well as the very large. They have better nanotechnology than anyone else within a few hundred light-years. Both the Mahal and the Conglomerate sometimes plant a “seed” of micro-machines in an asteroid to replicate and convert the raw substance into refined metals and volatiles or even complete starships or sections of an O’Neill colony. The microfacs used in Meroë are based on nivoncoli technology, though much cruder.
 
Just about everyone has experience with nivoncoli technology through the Conglomerate. The hyper-corporation sets up factories on every world that allows it entry to build anything people are willing to buy, from starships to salt shakers. Conglomerate technology is advanced for humans but merely average for the nivoncoli themselves. Anything built by the Conglomerate is sure to be sturdy, reliable and easy to use.
 
Governance: Conglomerate and Mahal societies are built around patron-client relationships. Much of nivoncoli law and government takes the form of personal contracts, spelling out what a client owes his or her patron and what the patron may expect in return. In the Conglomerate, hierarchies of patron and client become almost feudal: Owners grant their primary clients the right to take clients of their own, and to set rules for anything the Owner does not care to define. A typical Conglomerate nivoncoli, therefore, may live under three or four levels of contractual obligation from Owner down to immediate manager. The Mahal organize as stockholder republics (in fact, they gave humanity the model for such governments) with each colony or starship administered by a board of directors that acts as collective patron to the community. In a nivoncoli university (probably chartered under a Conglomerate Owner), students are clients of their teachers and not only pay them directly, they might assist with anything from research to building the teacher’s house. The teachers pay a cut to their department head and supply other favors. In general, for any nivoncoli society — from a military force to a hobby club — the most prestigious member (however that’s defined) takes the role of patron and sets the rules for subordinates. Some distant nivoncoli societies have evolved impersonal, universal codes of laws by abstracting the notion of “patron” to the state as a whole.
 
Interstellar Relations: The Conglomerate is far and away the most powerful alien polity near the Terran Sphere. It’s also the one with the most involvement in human affairs. Various Transcendents own banks, factories and other businesses on every developed world; sometimes openly, sometimes hidden behind layers of holding companies. The Conglomerate owns a great deal of property in the territories of the surellans, zyradu and every other advanced race within several hundred light-years. The Conglomerate extends further than most societies manage because it isn’t a unified government, and its true chief commodities are knowledge and capital.
 
Several alien races are now clients to individual Owners, perpetually paying back debts incurred centuries before. The Transcendent Orodosheth owns the sakaryans’ world and uses them as favored minions and mercenaries. He also owns Trinicus. Orodosheth’s rival Ishalethon virtually owned the surellans. The surellans attacked Earth in hopes they could pay off their debts with a planet’s worth of loot. Neither the surellans nor humans yet know whether the war was really the surellans’ own idea, or whether Ishalethon hoped to extend his reach to Earth — or whether Orodosheth planted the idea so he could sell the UN a battle fleet without anyone caring too much about the fine print. When humanity learned how the Conglomerate operates, the result was the Corporate Rebellion and the World Governance Board takeover. After that, the WGB prevented any Owner from gaining too much power on any human world; but the Transcendents are patient… and they still own large sectors of the economy on every developed world.
 
The Mahal inspire less anxiety among humans and other races, because they have no desire to claim territory. All of space is theirs already. These nivoncoli trade their technology for rare elements such as vanadium or chromium — about the only thing they can’t make for themselves. The wandering Mahal occasionally turn pirate if they think a settlement is too weak to put up a fight, and the nivoncoli expect never to pass by again. Most Mahal are content to sell a consignment of starships, medical nanobots, or whatever, and move on. Some Mahal space colonies conduct steady trade with the Terran Sphere. Mahal colony-ships move freely through the Terran Sphere, “grazing” on Oort clouds and uninhabited star systems, because nobody can stop them.
 
Nivoncoli relations with the zyradu are as subtle and complicated as everything involving those emotionless masters of biotechnology. Most zyradu don’t care much about hardtech, but have no objection to the Conglomerate or Mahal making whatever they need. On the other hand, the zyradu also have no shame about defaulting on debts, and the nivoncoli don’t dare press too hard: the zyradu can fight back too well. Not a few nivoncoli also make their wealth as vendors for zyradu biotechnology, since people of most species prefer to deal with middlemen than with the mercurial and ruthless zyradu themselves.
 
On a personal level, nivoncoli tend to be unfriendly to members of other species: An alien is about as far “outside the herd” as possible. Personal experience can overcome this instinctive hostility, though. Nivoncoli who associate with aliens in a company, hobby group, or other shared activity often come to feel loyalty and affection for members of this synthetic “herd,” no matter what their species.
 
NIVONCOLI RACIAL PACKAGE DEAL
 
Ability                                                                                                                                     Cost
+3 DEX                                                                                                                                   9
-2 BODY                                                                                                                                 -4
+3” Running                                                                                                                             6
Angled Eyes: Increased Arc of Perception (240 Degrees) with Sight Group                              5
Keen Nose: Discriminatory on Taste/Smell                                                                                5         
Sharp Senses: +2 PER with All Sense Groups                                                                          6
 
Disadvantages                                                                                                                       Value
Physical Limitation: Poor Depth Perception, doubled Range Penalties (Infrequently, Greatly
            Limiting)                                                                                                                       -10
Psychological Limitation: Acquisitive (Common)                                                                        -10
 
Total Cost of Package:                                                                                                            7

The zyradu are part of the background of my Planetary Romance setting, but they are not entirely my creation. Some friends of mine have run a Traveller campaign for decades. However, they dislikes some elements of the setting and rewrote them. Notably, they rewrote the aliens to make them more alien. Really, nothing but the names were left. So the vargr stopped being uplifted wolves and became a powerful species of biology-focused and utterly pragmatic aliens (and a lot weirder looking). When I joined the campaign, I offered some additional cultural detail. When I set out to create my own campaign, I did another rewrite (and changed the name and appearance to avoid confusion), resulting in the zyradu.
 
I'm using them again, under the name Hyadans, for my new Champions campaign.  -- Dean Shomshak
 
 
ZYRADU
 
Biology: The zyradu show many anatomical resemblances to Earthly reptiles. They have an internal skeleton, scaled skin and slitted eyes. They also lay eggs. Zyradu have seven limbs, though: two arms, four legs and a tail that ends in a bone spike. They also have four eyes. One pair of eyes sees colors in bright light, while one sees in dim light. Zyradu skin is colored various shades of blue or purple, from medium hues to nearly black.
 
The average zyradu weighs 200 kg, and 300 kg is not uncommon. Zyradu are never unarmed, since the long, muscular tail can curve over a zyradu’s body to strike a foe in front of the creature. Zyradu warriors sometimes affix a gun or bayonet to their tails, along with whatever weapons they carry in their hands.
 
Zyradu share one trait with pack animals, which hints at their evolutionary past: Relatively few female zyradu bear offspring, but those who do lay five to ten eggs at a time. Most zyradu cultures consider motherhood something best left to professionals. Humans have great difficulty telling male and female zyradu apart. Zyradu practice complete gender equality with no sexual politics, to the extent that they lack gender pronouns. Culturally sensitive aliens refer to zyradu as “it,” like the zyradu themselves. Zyradu have no nudity taboo, but may wear clothing for warmth, protection, or because pockets are useful.
 
Culture: Encountering the zyradu gave humanity its first hint about just how inhuman aliens might be. Zyradu lack emotion. They show physical drives to survive, mate and protect their progeny, but no love, no hate, no loyalty, anger, fear or joy. In the most general terms, zyradu seek their own best advantage, balancing what they hope to gain against the risk they must undertake, like the ideal rational actors of classical economics.
 
Zyradu recognize that no one can possess perfect information about the profit, loss and risk of every situation, especially about the long-term consequences of actions. Like humans, therefore, they form ideologies to guide their choices. Each zyradu ideology constitutes a guess about the strategy most likely to assure survival for oneself, one’s social group and the zyradu species as a whole. Ideologies do not possess any moral or transcendent aspect: zyradu do not choose an ideology because they believe it is “good.” They believe that a particular strategy optimizes their chances of surviving to propagate their genes and beliefs.
 
These different ideologies or survival strategies form the basis of social or political groupings that human xenologists dub “clans.” The zyradu term combines the connotations of extended family, political party, and even religion, while not precisely meaning any of these things. Zyradu society includes more than a dozen major clans and numerous minor clans and sub-clans. Many of these clan ideologies draw heavily on concepts from biology and ecology.
 
Zyradu clans are partly hereditary. Zyradu seek to indoctrinate their offspring with their own beliefs because people who share one’s beliefs increases one’s chance of implementing that ideology. It’s not unusual, however, for zyradu to switch to a different clan than their parents. In the remote past, groups of zyradu experimented with genetically “hardwiring” clan loyalty into their offspring, but they found that this made their societies too rigid and insular to optimize their survival. Zyradu show about the same degree of loyalty to parents as humans do: While zyradu feel no love for their parents, they do not feel any need to rebel, either.
 
Most zyradu also belong to extended families. These “phratries” combine several generations. Members usually follow the same ideology, but this is not always the case: Some phratries consider it strategically desirable to place members in multiple clans. The relationships between clans and phratries become at least as complicated and subtle as any human politics, and as volatile. Individual zyradu become leaders of their phratries or clans through seniority, skill at administration and persuasion, and interest in taking the job.
 
Nor are clans monolithic. A zyradu who disagrees with the dominant clan in its region may find it expedient to go along with the majority while attempting to nudge other zyradu to its point of view. If a zyradu sees some clear advantage to acting against its ideology, it may choose personal gain over abstract principle. Zyradu of the same clan do not necessarily agree in every detail, either, or feel mindless obedience to the clan’s interests. Zyradu pursue their own interests first. They do not even have words for concepts such as patriotism or loyalty: They must import such words from other species, or translate them as “insanity.” Zyradu can display altruism, though — some ideologies define the individual as a temporary and expendable vehicle for genes and memes.
 
Technology: The zyradu have developed biotechnology to a very great degree. Their “machines” may consist in whole or in part of organisms genetically engineered to perform special functions. For instance, zyradu do not build computers: They grow creatures whose brains are hardwired to perform intricate calculations or operate complex machinery by instinct. The zyradu grow living buildings, factories, vehicles… and weapons. Zyradu warfare relies on synthetic plagues and artificial organisms of varying lethality. Biotechnology cannot replace all “hardtech” — living fusion reactors or starship engines just aren’t possible — but the zyradu possess great expertise at integrating living and nonliving devices.
 
For millennia, the zyradu have genetically engineered themselves, too. However the species began, the average zyradu is now stronger, tougher, and smarter than the average human. Some zyradu diverge wildly from the species norm because of altered genetics. Most zyradu consider genetic alteration and bioengineering completely normal. They do not understand how humans could fight devastating wars over such an issue.
 
Governance: Zyradu space extends more than 200 light-years. No single polity extends further than a single world, however, and few zyradu societies grow even that large. Zyradu space consists of ever-changing alliances and counter-alliances between clans. A clan may wield enough power in a particular region that humans would say it “rules” that world, continent, city-state or neighborhood, but the zyradu would not. Zyradu space is not a government, or even a collection of governments: It is an ecology in which clans and phratries compete and cooperate like different species in a reef or forest. Even a single clan operating on the fringe of human space, however, may command the resources and power of a human planetary government.
 
Interstellar Relations: Different clans hold different attitudes to humanity and other species. Some zyradu want peaceful coexistence with other species; others regard competition as better for zyradu and aliens alike. A small, radical clan advocates the extinction of all other sapients to make more room for zyradu expansion, but the overwhelming majority of zyradu believe this strategy is counterproductive.
 
Zyradu treat other species the same way they treat each other. Often, they do whatever seems expedient to get what they want. Sometimes that means whatever they can get away with. Trust is one of the most valuable commodities for zyradu: Those who must live in close proximity can count on reciprocal self-interest to keep their fellows honest, but how can they prevent robbery, cheating or default if a zyradu can hop on a starship and vanish? Zyradu use elaborate methods to make default more costly than keeping faith. Humans joke that the zyradu invented the escrow company before the wheel. More extreme measures include mutual poisonings, with the antidote delivered when a deal is complete, or floating assassination contracts on anyone who robs or cheats the client. The zyradu who provide such services work very hard to establish their fidelity, for that is their fundamental commodity.
 
Clan alliances sometimes fight wars with other species. Zyradu warfare appalls humans for its cold-blooded pragmatism. These creatures don’t care about dominance displays, honor, revenge, or other intangibles. They also don’t care about mercy, rights, or rules of warfare. Nothing matters except achieving some tangible advantage over a rival (or victim).
 
The zyradu specialize in biowarfare — spreading plagues to remove an enemy’s capacity to resist. If the zyradu think a foe might become useful later on, they create diseases to incapacitate enemies and supply the cure once the enemy surrenders. If zyradu see no potential benefit from an enemy, the plague kills. Fortunately for other species, the far-sighted zyradu rarely decide that today’s enemy is a threat forever and a resource never. Most clans believe that outright attempts at genocide cause more problems than they solve.
 
The causes of wars against aliens range from the obvious — zyradu want to colonize a world but not share it — to the utterly obscure, at least to the aliens involved. To be fair, some of the wars make no sense to the zyradu, either. The zyradu make no secret that they find much of other species’ behavior difficult to understand — especially humans. Wars between zyradu and humans (or other species) usually end when someone buys out one of the attacking clans or finds a way to make the zyradus’ goal too difficult to be worth the effort. Wars between zyradu factions tend to move in slow motion, as the members of each participating clan ponder each new development and recalculate their own risks and interests.
 
Much about zyradu society and politics remains puzzling to humans, though zyradu themselves insist (of course) that their societies are entirely rational and therefore entirely comprehensible. Other species do not understand zyradu culture because other species are not rational. Individual zyradu possess different sets of information to guide their decision-making, however, and this leads to inevitable disagreement and in some cases to error and less than optimal survival strategies, or even different standards of what constitutes “survival.” Xenologists caution humans to tread cautiously and to avoid reading human motives and viewpoints into zyradu societies.
 
CLANS
At least half of all zyradu merely ally with whatever faction seems strongest or pays best. They desert when they find a better deal. These “Opportunist” zyradu display no loyalty to each other, either — only to their phratry.
 
Many of the clan names refer to biological, ecological or evolutionary concepts — a link to the zyradu’s awesomely advanced biological science. Clans known to humans include:
 
CLONAL MONAD: These zyradu form hive-mind societies in isolation even from other zyradu. Their hives often live in space colonies.
 
COERCIVE GARDENER: These zyradu advocate conquering other species as a means of managing them and, in the long run, assimilating them into zyradu society. When zyradu control all sentient life, other species cannot threaten zyradu survival.
 
COMMENSAL ADAPTER: This clan advocates cooperation with other sentient species for mutual benefit. These zyradu point out the many instances of cooperation between species in every planet’s ecosystem. The Commensal Adapters chiefly interact with humanity through trade, leading some humans to call them “Commercial Adapters” instead.
 
COMPETITIVE SELECTOR: This clan advocates war against other species to winnow out weak societies, both zyradu and alien. The Competitive Selectors think the zyradu can out-compete other sapient species and displace them from their worlds.
 
DISCRETE GENOME: These zyradu oppose any cooperation with other sapients and advocate strict isolationist policies. They would use force, if necessary, to keep other sapients at a distance and prevent contamination from non-zyradu cultures. The Discrete Genome also tries to prevent species contamination between biospheres.
 
IMMORTAL: A defunct clan from zyradu history. About 15,000 years ago, a group of zyradu created offspring who never grew old. In a matter of centuries, the immortals achieved immense influence over zyradu society through sheer accumulation of resources. The Immortals dominated the zyradu for millennia in a stultifying period that many zyradu now regard as a dark age. The Immortals did not make more of their kind because they had no need for offspring to carry on their genes or beliefs, and every other Immortal was a competitor. Over the millennia, the Immortals died by mishap or assassination, or they retreated into ultra-secure, self-sufficient bunkers. Few of them remain active and they wield no great influence in zyradu space. (However, they gave ideas to the nivoncoli who became the Owners of the Conglomerate.)
 
IMMUNAL EXTINCTION: This radical clan seeks to annihilate all species, sapient or otherwise, that could threaten zyradu survival. Other zyradu periodically suppress the Immunal Extinctionists on the grounds that this clan itself endangered zyradu survival by provoking wars with other species. The clan keeps reappearing, however, as a spontaneous sociobot.
 
MUTAGEN: These zyradu engage in radical genetic experimentation upon themselves in hopes of bypassing evolution and finding ways to improve their species. They conduct similar experiments upon other species too, including other sapients when they can get away with it. Mutagens believe that a more powerful genetic science increases the zyradu’s power and safety in the long run, even if it costs the lives of individuals — preferably not themselves, of course.
 
SAPIENT CLADE: These zyradu promote social and biological diversity among sentient life. They think diversity confers flexibility and rapid innovation, and this in turn brings strength and promotes survival. The Sapient Clade believes in protecting endangered cultures — even non-zyradu cultures — just like endangered species. Who knows what gene or meme might become useful at a later time?
 
SLAVER: This small clan rules and exploits a species called the r’yax. The Slavers began as a Commensal Adapter group that tried to accelerate the r’yax’s technological development and ended up conquering them. For their own safety, the Slavers cannot release the vengeful r’yax. The Slavers point out, though, that parasitism is one of the most successful of all ecological strategies. There may be other Slaver clans in the depths of zyradu space.
 
STEEL INTEGRAL: These zyradu pursue hardtech instead of biotechnology. They place particular emphasis on bionics as a way to combine the strengths of zyradu and machine. Steel Integral members can hold any other ideology as well, but they agree that technological development forms the most important strategy for their species’ survival and growth.
 
SYMBIONT VOID: This clan eschews planets to live in mobile space habitats. It also seeks to incorporate other species into the clan society. Humans know little about the Symbiont Void.
 
Humans perceive two major alliances or super-clans in zyradu culture, which they call simply “Clan Group A” and “Clan Group B.” Clan Group A generally takes an aggressive posture to other species. Clan Group B generally advocates some form of peaceful coexistence. The Coercive Gardeners and Competitive Selectors are bulwarks of Clan Group A, while the Commensal Adapters and Sapient Clade lead Clan Group B.
 
Other clans remain neutral or make temporary alliances based on shared interests. For instance, Symbiont Void zyradu usually side with Clan Group B, but they can also work with the Coercive Gardeners if that seems like the best way to increase the species diversity of their space habitats. Conversely, the Discrete Genome sometimes sides with Clan Group B if they think a war would increase contact with another species.
 
ZYRADU RACIAL PACKAGE DEAL
 
Ability                                                                                                                                     Cost
+5 STR                                                                                                                                    5
+3 CON                                                                                                                                  6
+3 INT                                                                                                                                    3
-6 COM                                                                                                                                  -3
Tail: Extra Limbs, Intrinsic (+1/4), No Manipulation (-1/4)                                                       5
Tail: 1d6 HKA                                                                                                                        15
Tough Skin: 2 PD, 2 ED Armor                                                                                               6
+3” Running                                                                                                                             6
 
Disadvantages                                                                                                                       Value
Psychological Limitation: Lack of Emotion, Driven by Self-Interest and Abstract Philosophy (Common, Strong) -15
 
Total Cost of Package:                                                                                                          28

In this month's Scientific American:
 
* A feature article on "the emptiest place in the universe." Astronemers have found a "supervoid" -- a volume of space about 1.8 billion light-years waide that is incredibly deficient in galaxies or anything else. It lies in the direction of another cosmic anomaly, the large "cold spot" in the WMAP image of the cosmic background radiation. A supervoid should cause such a cold spot, but -- large though it is -- the supervoid still doesn't seem big enough to explain the WMAP cold spot through known physics. More observations are needed to nail down the supervoid's size more precisely. It is possible, though (if I understand the author correctly), that this might be the first clue to accelerated expansion and dark energy that doesn't depend on supernova measurements. Or possibly modified gravity or other new physics.
 
* Another feature article on the OSIRIS_REx mission to retrieve material from a carbonaceous chondrite asteroid. The target asteroid, Bennu, is particularly important because it's an Earth-grazer with an unstable orbit.
 
And in non-space news, the issue includes an article about the neurochemistry of making zombies. No, really. The zombies are cockroaches, and the perpetrator is a wasp, but still -- zombies.
 
Ah, Nature. You never cease to amaze and terrify me.
 
Dean Shomshak

I'm not arguing that the weaponisation of space isn't an important and ongoing problem. I'm arguing that pre-orbited "kinetic strike weapons" are a dumb idea.
 
I mean, just beyond stupid. 
 
This artificial meteorite concept is often nicknamed ‘the rods from God’ even by its supporters, who usually claim it would be relatively cheap to set up (indeed some claim it already exists). They give the impression that at the press of a button, these rods will just fall from the sky on their victims. However it is not that easy. As each rod circles the Earth it is moving at least 7 km/s, to make the rod fall from orbit under gravity, we need to adjust its orbit to intersect the Earth’s surface. To do this each rod therefore needs to be attached to a rocket motor and its fuel tanks (or solid propellant), suddenly each cheap 100kg rod has ballooned into a multi-tonne vehicle, perhaps the size of a Soyuz spacecraft. At least it does not need a heatshield, a tungsten projectile could reasonably be expected to survive the expected heat of re-entry.
The ground-penetrating effects of such projectiles is grossly over-stated too- do falling meteorites of this sort of size always bury themselves hundreds of metres under the ground? Laboratory experiments show that objects striking the surface at speeds greater than 1 km/s are melted by their own kinetic energy before they penetrate the ground, effectively liquefying on impact. Rather than slamming into the target at 20 times the speed of sound, the rods may need to be slowed down to fast aircraft speeds to prevent them disintegrating on impact.
The problems of guiding each rod is usually dismissed with handwaving references to GPS, although some armchair space marshals also follow Pournelle’s fictional lead to suggest each rod would have its own imaging sensor to find and steer onto moving targets like tanks or warships. I have no doubt that the electronics are feasible but the rod now needs control surfaces hooked to its guidance system and sounds more like a missile than a cheap metal rod. Do these now complex projectiles require maintenance in orbit?
Finally, it is said that the rods can hit any target on Earth minutes after the KILL button is pressed. Once again, this doesn’t seem properly thought out. The rods can only hit targets on or near their orbital track, for weeks at a time some parts of the world would be invulnerable as their potential attackers would never come within hundreds of kilometers from their positions. The only way around this limitation is to have hundred of rods waiting ready in multiple orbits, requiring a ludicrous number of launches. Even if the target is directly under the rod’s orbital track, the attack may not be instantaneous, as those who order the attack wait perhaps 90 minutes for the rods to move around the Earth into position. Even the Joint Chiefs of Staff cannot overrule Sir Isaac Newton.

This month's issue of Scientific American has a nifty article on new types of supernova-like phenomena, and astronomers' attempts to find and explain them. To begin with, new observational techniques result in astronomers finding more supernovae in a week than they found in the entire 20th century. As a result, rare phenomena are being observed that don't fit what astronomers thought they knew about supernovae, such as events 100 times brighter or only 1% as bright. Attempts to explain these events lead to speculations about further SN-like phenomena and attempts to spot them.
 
My own favorite is the "unnova." It begins with the fact that astronomers no longer know how massive a star can get -- they've found stars that are much bigger than they thought possible. And you'd think that more massive stars would result in bigger kabooms, right? But when the core of a sufficiently massive star collapses, instead of forming a neutron star (with consequent rebounding shock wave that detonates the rest of the star as a supernova), it might collapse directly into a black hole. No rebound, no shock wave, no explosion. The rest of the star's mass just keeps falling in and the star just... winks out.
 
Colliding neutron stars might also produce something very strange, a sort of sub-supernova blast concentrated in the far red and infrared that sprays out a cloud of heavy elements.
 
The fun thing is, if something is so extraordinary that it would happen only once in a billion years in a single galaxy, it probably happens every day in the Universe as a whole. So you just have to watch enough galaxies to see something that leaves you gobsmacked.
 
Dean Shomshak

The May issue of Scientific American has an excellent article on reconstructing the formation of the Solar System. Based upon both computer simulations and studied of the exoplanets discovered by Kepler, it was a stranger, more complex and far more violent process than astronomers imagined just 20 years ago. I was especially interested in the anomaly astronomers didn't even realize was anomalous pre=Kepler: Why doesn't the inner Solar System include a few super-Earths? Most seem to.
 
Dean Shomshak

This one: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/02/26/389250817/astronomers-discover-a-supermassive-black-hole-dating-to-cosmic-dawn ?

Well, not every great discovery pans out; or it turns out that one discovered something different.
 
This month's Scientific American also has a short article about Big Rocks from Space as the cause of mass extinctions. In brief, the theory is dead. Of the 5 biggest mass extinctions in the fossil record, 4 are associated with massive flood basalt events. As geologists have refined the dates, the association has become tighter and tighter. Only the K-T extinction had a Big Rock From Space impact, but the Deccan Traps eruption was happening at the time and appears to have been plenty big enough to kill off the dinosaurs (and a whole lot more) all by itself. No impacts have been found at the times of other mass extinctions, so it looks like the Chicxulub impact was just a coincidence.
 
(Granted, a big rock falling on a bed of sulfur-rich limestone probably made things worse. K-T impactor co-discoverer Walter Alvarez also tries to keep the theory alive by arguing that the impact shook the Deccan eruption fissures wider, making it worse. Maybe so, but it now looks like the impact was only an aggravating factor, not the main cause.)
 
The Big Rock From Space hypothesis wasn't worthless. It got geologists looking at rock strata and fossil evidence in new ways. It was wrong, but productively wrong, which makes it a good example of science operating as it should.
 
Also, the Ordovician mass extinction remains mysterious. No Big Rock From Space; no Large Igneous Province.
 
Dark Energy may turn out to be another case where the apparent discovery turns out not to be the real discovery. It may take a few decades to figure it out, though.
 
Dean Shomshak