Post by Neoadept on May 5, 2010 5:08:49 GMT
The Creators
The Ikorim are an arrogant, selfish species who aren't nearly as clever as they think they are.
The average Ikorim is a wormish creature roughly two meters long and made up of a dozen exo-skeletal segments, most of which have pointed limbs with a limited range of movement adapted for digging and moving through tunnels. The limbs at the leading segment, near the head, are longer and more delicate, but end in the same point, requiring the use of all three for precision work. Possessing trilateral symmetry, each of the three limbs are spaced equidistantly on every segment. The mouth is a beak split into six segments, the eyes actually resting within, protected against attack and soil.
Once, they hunted by tunneling to the surface and lying in wait, seizing small prey they sensed by vibration, only opening their mouths to see and close in on the last few feet of the strike. Prey was swallowed whole and could typically last them a week.
Once, they controlled their world with vast corporate empires and thought themselves masters of life itself.
But this is not their story, primarily because they managed to kill of almost their entire species. Cause? Well, arrogance and overconfidence have caused the leading cause of death for the Ikorim to be self assurance, characterized by the phrase "he really thought he ___________." As in "he really thought he could climb that cliff," or "he really thought he had balanced his roof right," and, finally, "he really thought he could engineer a life extending retrovirus in one go without there being any horrible plague like side effects."
As has been stated, the Ikorim were never nearly as clever as they thought they were.
The Hydryad
Perhaps the only thing the Ikorim got even half right and hinted at any degree of biological expertise, the Hydryad were created as a servitor race that would make cheap, obedient labor.
As such, they are a very helpful species, though design flaws and poorly thought out features have given them numerous quirks and mental ticks.
Biology
The Hydryad are characterized by thick, trunk-like bodies extending a meter and a half tall. They are topped by three sturdy arms ending in four pronged hands. The eyes are located just beneath and between the arms (yes, this does cause numerous line of sight problems, but it seemed like a really good idea at the time). They are balanced on three stumpy legs that can just about shuffle them about, with any decent speed requiring them to flail their arms about to shift their weight from one foot to the next. They have no mouths, because feeding them intravenously was just easier. Breathing is done through gaps in their torso which function somewhere between a gill and a lung.
Reproduction is physically impossible on their own, as they don't even posses a single genetic code they can call their own. Instead, every organ, exoskeleton, neuron chain, and muscle strand is grown separately in vats and combined on an assembly line, each with it's own genetic code purpose built for that part. Of course, any immune system would tear most of the body apart on the assumption that it's an invader, so there is none. Instead, they rely on slightly shifted chemical bases and chemicals in their feed lines to stave off infection. On the bright side, interchangeable parts make transplants and repairs remarkably simple.
Psychology and Culture
"The perfect servitor race," the Ikorim had believed, "is one smart enough to see what needs to be done, but never thinks too hard about why we're in charge." To this end they gave their creations massive pattern recognition capabilities and removed their long term object memory. Which is to say, they have muscle memory, allowing them to instinctively make motions they've used in the past, and conceptual memory, allowing them to grasp and use abstract concepts such as math and language, but lack the ability to retain actual events or things beyond their short term memory. Some things will be retained well beyond this period if brought up repeatedly, but this is less a continuation of the original memory and more a new one being made in it's place.
For once, this seemed to be a good idea. The naturally helpful Hydryad could take in and process an entire situation in instants and dive in to assist despite having no memory of doing such a thing in the past. Combined with their mass produced appearance, this also led to them writing numerous reminders on their arms an torsos, reminding themselves of things and reminding others of who they are.
After the fall of their masters, pattern recognition served them well in maintaining the world left to them. Farms were taken care of and deliveries were made because they saw what needed to be done and followed through without a second thought. Factory production of their race went on undisturbed. For a time, the world ran as a slightly disturbing facsimile of the old one, servants continuing to go about duties which had become largely useless.
Then, something broke down. Some helpful Hydryad opened it up to fix it, and in a few minutes of study spotted how it worked and what was wrong. It set about repairing it in short order and, after a moment of hesitation, went back in and began fixing some of the glaring design flaws that were the trademark of the old race.
And thus began the age of invention.
The Ikorim are an arrogant, selfish species who aren't nearly as clever as they think they are.
The average Ikorim is a wormish creature roughly two meters long and made up of a dozen exo-skeletal segments, most of which have pointed limbs with a limited range of movement adapted for digging and moving through tunnels. The limbs at the leading segment, near the head, are longer and more delicate, but end in the same point, requiring the use of all three for precision work. Possessing trilateral symmetry, each of the three limbs are spaced equidistantly on every segment. The mouth is a beak split into six segments, the eyes actually resting within, protected against attack and soil.
Once, they hunted by tunneling to the surface and lying in wait, seizing small prey they sensed by vibration, only opening their mouths to see and close in on the last few feet of the strike. Prey was swallowed whole and could typically last them a week.
Once, they controlled their world with vast corporate empires and thought themselves masters of life itself.
But this is not their story, primarily because they managed to kill of almost their entire species. Cause? Well, arrogance and overconfidence have caused the leading cause of death for the Ikorim to be self assurance, characterized by the phrase "he really thought he ___________." As in "he really thought he could climb that cliff," or "he really thought he had balanced his roof right," and, finally, "he really thought he could engineer a life extending retrovirus in one go without there being any horrible plague like side effects."
As has been stated, the Ikorim were never nearly as clever as they thought they were.
The Hydryad
Perhaps the only thing the Ikorim got even half right and hinted at any degree of biological expertise, the Hydryad were created as a servitor race that would make cheap, obedient labor.
As such, they are a very helpful species, though design flaws and poorly thought out features have given them numerous quirks and mental ticks.
Biology
The Hydryad are characterized by thick, trunk-like bodies extending a meter and a half tall. They are topped by three sturdy arms ending in four pronged hands. The eyes are located just beneath and between the arms (yes, this does cause numerous line of sight problems, but it seemed like a really good idea at the time). They are balanced on three stumpy legs that can just about shuffle them about, with any decent speed requiring them to flail their arms about to shift their weight from one foot to the next. They have no mouths, because feeding them intravenously was just easier. Breathing is done through gaps in their torso which function somewhere between a gill and a lung.
Reproduction is physically impossible on their own, as they don't even posses a single genetic code they can call their own. Instead, every organ, exoskeleton, neuron chain, and muscle strand is grown separately in vats and combined on an assembly line, each with it's own genetic code purpose built for that part. Of course, any immune system would tear most of the body apart on the assumption that it's an invader, so there is none. Instead, they rely on slightly shifted chemical bases and chemicals in their feed lines to stave off infection. On the bright side, interchangeable parts make transplants and repairs remarkably simple.
Psychology and Culture
"The perfect servitor race," the Ikorim had believed, "is one smart enough to see what needs to be done, but never thinks too hard about why we're in charge." To this end they gave their creations massive pattern recognition capabilities and removed their long term object memory. Which is to say, they have muscle memory, allowing them to instinctively make motions they've used in the past, and conceptual memory, allowing them to grasp and use abstract concepts such as math and language, but lack the ability to retain actual events or things beyond their short term memory. Some things will be retained well beyond this period if brought up repeatedly, but this is less a continuation of the original memory and more a new one being made in it's place.
For once, this seemed to be a good idea. The naturally helpful Hydryad could take in and process an entire situation in instants and dive in to assist despite having no memory of doing such a thing in the past. Combined with their mass produced appearance, this also led to them writing numerous reminders on their arms an torsos, reminding themselves of things and reminding others of who they are.
After the fall of their masters, pattern recognition served them well in maintaining the world left to them. Farms were taken care of and deliveries were made because they saw what needed to be done and followed through without a second thought. Factory production of their race went on undisturbed. For a time, the world ran as a slightly disturbing facsimile of the old one, servants continuing to go about duties which had become largely useless.
Then, something broke down. Some helpful Hydryad opened it up to fix it, and in a few minutes of study spotted how it worked and what was wrong. It set about repairing it in short order and, after a moment of hesitation, went back in and began fixing some of the glaring design flaws that were the trademark of the old race.
And thus began the age of invention.
