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Makes sense.

Overview

The chemoautotrophic Crystaliens are an ethereal, almost angelic species. Standing approximately three-and-a-half meters high, they are primarily confined to the watery depths of the subglacial oceans of Titania, and are said to resemble glowing angelic creatures of the night.

Anatomy and physiology

Physically resembling the anthropoi—apart from being thinner—their primary characteristics is a pair of vast, membranous wingspan up to six meters connecting to their arms, ending at the wrist. Smaller secondary and tertiary pelvic fins aid in maneuvering. They lack anal fins. Possessing a two meter long "tail"—actually their digitigrade hind limbs pressed close together—ending in twin vertically forked fins similar to a Thresher shark's they can move swiftly when desired. While these "two tailed" fins are mistaken for feet they actually hidden at the base with four clawed and webbed toes. Instead of hair they have a long cartilage "wing" dividing into forked membranous fins and extend outward a little ways; this connects to their dorsal fin heterocercally. Extending from this connection is a single dorsal fin that divides in two when it reaches their pelvis. Their arms are humanoid and end in four, webbed fingers. These are extended when in motion.

Crystalian blood is yellowish-orange in color, and they "breathe" hydrogen. This process is inefficient compared to oxygen-breathers. Their bioluminescent skin is studded in mottled light bluish-green patterns and can change colors. It is soft to the touch, almost like statin, with small electrical impulses jumping at contact. Their humanoid faces, while smooth and nearly featureless, possess two pairs of eyes, a mouth, and a protuberance which resembles a nose. Gills are located about the neck. The eyes are colored either cyan, magenta, yellow, green, purple, or related shades thereof.

They possess little sexual dimorphism and generally resemble anthropoi females with minor physiological differences; "sex" is instead recognized as a social function, with three different "female" genders recorded and one "male". Monogamy is unknown, likely because of the disparate ratio between the different types. However there is a definitely sexual aspect to their reproductive cycle—any of the three female types can be fertilized by the male. This kind of fertilization may account for the disparate eye color and sizes. Crystaliens live for typically four hundred Titanian years because of their slow metabolisms.

Uniquely, they have an organ in their frontal temporal lobes which allows them to somehow communicate via the mind. This is poorly understood. Touching one's skin would establish telepathic contact yet they can communicate effortlessly with individuals they have never seen before. For hunting prey in deeper waters they use echolocation to sound out locations, and for general communication use their bioluminescence.

Life cycle

Crystalien birthrate is low owing to their long lives.

During courtship, a male would either leave his clan or stay within to find a suitable mate. He would approach a certain "female" of his choice with a mixture of singing and fluidic dancing, to attract her to him; the female could either respond favorably or not. If the latter, the male departs for another. If the former, she answers in likewise manner, swimming with him in intricate patterns while singing in harmony or dissonance. These courtship rituals can last for many months of the Titanian year, as time is reckoned, and are largely dependent on the participants' skill in wooing the other. Sometimes males would compete in attracting a female, varying their songs and dances to try and sway her or else fight one another, either physically or verbally. Weapons are not used.

Each Crystalien begins as a tiny microscopic "egg", resembling a seed crystal. When the Crystalien female is fertilized she lays thousands of egg groupings between twenty to thirty inside rock cracks and crevices for protection. Most of these do not survive, crowded out by their faster growing siblings as they absorb and synthesize nutrients directly from the water. Those that do survive cohere together for mutual protection and warmth. They change and transform rapidly over time, extruding so much energy they melt their way into the rock, rooting inside. Eventually this collated crystal reaches half a meter in size, and resembles a rhomboid capped by two pyramids.

Then they become dormant, storing their gathered energy for a final metamorphosis, growing at a steady rate to preserve as much of this stored energy as possible. During this time their telepathic abilities begin to mature and they experience the passage of time in a dreamlike state. They may stay in this form for many Titanian years. When fully mature they "awaken" and emerge from their protected place, now a small crater, and pull apart. Nearly sixty one centimeters long they reach out telepathically to the rest of the Crystalien civilization and are retrieved by a young adult. They then enter Crystalien society.

As they age Crystaliens subtly change colors, growing progressively lighter until they turn a colorless white, at which point they have nearly reached the end of their lifespan. They are buried in a chrysalis, bound up tightly with their wings folded over them. The funeral is a solemn affair, everyone who has known the departed attending. They "watch" the soul fade from the body until nothing is left in the empty husk, and the funeral ends.

Culture

Despite living underwater the Crystaliens nonetheless possess a marvelous culture. In addition to communicating via the colors of their skin and echolocation, Crystaliens have a musical language of haunting beauty. Each song is filled with complex, melodious symphonies which communicate every emotion possible to one another. Because of their telepathic nature, they have a richly preserved culture, allowing for an individual's achievements to live on enshrined in racial memory. Lacking fire—and thus, conventional technology—the Crystaliens are very creative in building elaborate networks of Hive cities and nests around strategic hydrothermal vents, located on mountains or plateaus. Similar to insects, the Crystaliens meld together rock and a waxlike substance they secrete to form bubble-like buildings with multiple chambers branching outward. Reefs which form around vents often become part of these interconnected buildings, blurring the difference between artificial and natural, and it is not uncommon for a nation-state to be made up of one gigantic city. Entrances are located in the ceiling of the building, with windows unknown, and internal entrances are usually wide to accommodate many swimmers; certain "plants" and animals are cultivated as light sources for more cavernous buildings.

Crystalien society is divided up into multiple pods or clans varying in size, with some reaching up to several hundred thousand individuals while the smallest is usually twenty or less. Each clan is distinct from the other by utilizing specific melodies and frequencies, and color patterns, to identify and unify their members together. A distinct hierarchy present within the clans, again utilizing color patterns, echolocation frequencies, and melodies to organize it. Certain individuals would oversee newly matured young, others would engage in songs, or attending the biological mother of the group in a court. This mother is the equivalent to an anthropoi queen.

The only individuals not part of a clan are the Neuromancers. Exclusively male these live in solitude, meditating on their religion, occasionally coming together for certain rituals or to welcome a novice, and sometimes meeting with another non-Neuromancer. They live in and around an isolated dwelling called a "water temple". The only exception to this rule is the High Temple located in the largest city, and the Neuromancers within. Water temples are unique structures not located in any city or community—except for the High Temple—but rather are scattered about the subaqueous landscape, hidden within fields of swaying seaweeds or exposed on flat plains of sand and mud. Neuromancers live in solitude, meditating on their religion, occasionally coming together for certain rituals or to welcome a novice, and sometimes meeting with another non-Neuromancer.

Governmental structure

Each clan is ruled by its biological mother, who acts as diplomat and judge. Each superclan is ruled by either whoever is well-respected by the group or an established ruling family, and they are often part of the city council.

Cities are governed by Lesser Queens, who decide local matters and are advised by their smaller councils. Courts are overseen by Minor Queens, who handle regional affairs while being advised by their retinue; and Tribunals are ruled by a "Greater Queen" who resolve inter-Tribunal relations, advised by their entourage. Finally comes the Hierarchy of Hierarchies, which is a body of Tribunal Greater Queens overseen by the Hive Monarch, the ultimate Crystalien collective, advised by all of the Greater Queens. The Hierarchy of Hierarchies is a general term for their governmental structure.

Nearly every position is held by females though it is not unheard of for males to be involved. Females generally are the ones who govern, as the female/male ratio is three to one and coupled with a low birthrate.

• Clan: Clans are the basic political form of Crystalien society.

Clans are a small group of ten to twenty families, each composed of thirty individuals, which usually live alone, either on the move or settled somewhere permanent, but sometimes they can come together to form a super-clan. Clan-mothers are the biological ancestor of the clan familes and are attended by a court of lesser females, usually her direct daughters. Her consort, the male who has directly captured her attention multiple times, serves as a coregent.

• Super-clan: Clans sometimes would join together to form a super-clan. The reasons are varied but mostly to combat larger predators within Titania's subglacial oceans or for protection against other super-clans. To effectively lead such a massive organization, potential leaders would contend with one another in non-hostile ways until only one is left; eventually a ruling dynasty (through the female line) would coalesce if the super-clan has remained together for a significant period of time, and become a permanent form of government.

• City: A more complex form of administration free of kinship ties was needed when super-clans started living in the same area around a hydrothermal vent, eventually forming organized cities, leading to disputes over resources. The basis for the monarchical feudalistic form of administration was then created; individuals well-respected within the community were granted "queenship" of the city and became the ultimate arbiters of justice; like the super-clan, a ruling dynasty soon formed, and political stability was ensured.

• Court: Eventually the cities became numerous and soon came into competition with one another for territory and resources. Some allied with one another, forming large empires or coalitions. Others went to war. Eventually a rough groups of disparate collectives were created, and were termed Courts. Made up of anywhere between four to six cities, they were ruled by Queens, while the leaders of the cities became known as Lesser Queens. The Queens handled the international side of things while the Lesser Queens handled their own cities. True to its name, a Court had nobility attending to the monarch.

• Tribunal: Finally, with the advent of an organized political structure, the Tribunals were created. Composed of between three to seven Courts, overseeing anywhere from ten to fifteen individual cities and thousands of clans, these Tribunals were ruled by the Greater Queen. Those which ruled the Courts became known as Lesser Queens while the cities became known as Minor Queens.

• Hierarchy of Hierarchies: The last tier of government was created when the Tribunal Greater Queens convened together to figure out a solution to keep mass warfare from breaking out. Due to a war fought between those which lived in the deep oceans beneath the glaciers and the Cronus lake, a way was needed to keep the peace. Thus the Hierarchy of Hierarchies was born—the Hive Monarch was elected out of a group of seven hundred Tribunals, and now arbites any dispute. These often are to the resolution of mass resource claims, predator migrations needing to be diverted, or—rarely—to address an aggressive Tribunal.

Neuromancers

These mysterious individuals are separate from the Crystalien Hierarchy of Hierarchies, serving as priests and bishops for the Crystalens spiritual needs. They live alone within water temples that are set apart from the busy cities. They seldom enter the mental networkings except in great instances, and when they do, grave portents are afoot. Situated in the deepest center of the largest city the High Temple is where the new Hive Monarch is crowned by the Elder Neuromancer, attended to by all of the Neuromancers. That is the only regular exception to their rule of solitude. These are all exclusively male.

Their ranks are as follows, from lesser to greater:

• "Novice"
• Neuromancer
• Master Neuromancer
• Adept Neuromancer
• Arch-Neuromancer
• Elder Neuromancer

They meditate on their place in the world and in the Path. They guide others along the Path, dispensing wisdom when they choose to "speak", which is rare; mostly they communicate via mental impressions. They occasionally glimpse the Oversoul and its coming place in the divine pantheon, and wrestle with the "evil spirits" that threaten to stray themselves and others from the Path into darkness.

Neuroprophet

A mysterious being, known only through myth and legend. It is uncertain if they are the Gods of Light and Dark or, as their name suggests, messengers of these entities. The Kōnerian Expedition has never seen one and infers by acciocation.

Telepathy

Crystalien telepathy is poorly understood by anthropoi scientists, and most are skeptical of it. It is, however, the foundation of their entire culture. Everything from their history to melodies is stored within the collective memories of the Crystaliens; it is also the basis of their religion where they believe their spirits communicate by the telepathic medium, and where the Oversoul would eventually form. All Crystaliens are aware of one another, especially if they were in close proximity. Distinct mental patterns would form, dialects, that identified groups as different; each clan and super-clan had its own unique "accent" and cities their own "dialect", while Courts and Tribunals shared a common pattern.

Despite their telepathic culture, the Crystaliens have a very tiny minority—one out of a million—called Blanks who possess no mental signature at all and are completely immune to any sort of telepathic reach. They can, however, communicate with the rest through ordinary means but are otherwise isolated from the culture. They live in solitude, contemplating their lonely existence, and meditate on the spiritual.

Where the anthropoi are concerned, however, several distinct attributes have emerged. The first is they have a natural immunity to the Crystalien telepathic influence, possessing immensely "strong" shields that can repel powerful mental attacks, but not to the extent Blanks can. It was this immunity that blocked the Crystaliens from initial contact and subsequent communication, and allowed the anthropoi to inexplicably survive strikes that would render a psychic unconscious.

Also bizarre was that if the shields were breached the trauma would send the anthropos into a comma, where they would be unreachable to telepathic intrusion; moreover, strange entities or things dubbed "Guardians" would appear, and actively harry the Crystaliens until they went away by summoning horrors and nightmares which frightened whoever beheld them. These Guardians were thought to either be evil spirits of Crystalien belief in a unnatural symbiosis or else created figments of the anthropoi imagination.

Only one anthropos to date has a psychic sensitivity, coupled together with shields and the Guardians. The Crystaliens discovered that reaching them was extremely hard, as they were inadvertently affected by the summoned nightmares.

Religion

The Crystaliens believe in two deities, or entities, virtually foreign to the anthropinos’ conception of God, called the Gods of Light and Dark. According the Crystaliens the Gods of Light and Dark are all that existed or ever would exist. The universe is a commingling of their attributes, with the Dark having the greater contribution while the Light is more concentrated; thus they—and the universe itself by extension—are eternal. They are neither evil nor good but simply are.

The universe, according to the Crystaliens, is a dark and lonely void filled with beings who create their own light. Those with enough generated light are able to see “the Path", a concept or ritual belonging to their beliefs that is apparently a guide to transcendence and enlightenment. When one has tread upon the Path for long enough they would begin to comprehend the "Oversoul", an eventual unification of the entire Crystalien species into one entity, united yet separate. This is considered to be a nascent “god” to one day take its place in the mysterious pantheon of the twin Gods of Light and Dark.

Opposing them are what the Crystaliens call "evil spirits", failed creatures who strayed off the Path by material lust and temporal preoccupation, allowing their light to grow dim, and are alone and friendless. These seek to prevent others from journeying along the Path, and prevent the Oversoul from forming out of spite and jealousy. It is rumoured that their chief was once a powerful Crystalien religious leader who fell into the eternal darkness and grew to hate the light.