Grakaenaios

The Grakaenaioi, (sing. Grakaenaios) are a dragonoid race that was discovered by humans during the colonization of the moon Dodan. Humans sometimes refer to them as "Graks." They are eusocial species led by a single reproductive queen known as Grakaena. The queen is able to design her offspring at the molecular level in order to adapt them to fit custom circumstances. Each Grakaenaios is a sentient creature with a unique will, yet all are devotedly loyal to their queen.

Basic Information

Anatomy

The average Grakaenaios resembles a large dragon. They have four limbs ending in clawed feet, a strong tail, a reptilian snout atop a long neck, and two large membranous wings. They are covered in scales for protection that range in every color of the visible spectrum of light.
However, the queen mother is able to produce variable offspring tailor-made to suit a variety of environmental conditions or specialized tasks. For example, some Grakaenaioi have fins and gills rather than claws and wings. Others have additional appendages. After encountering humans, the queen has even produced humanoid Grakaenaioi that resemble humans covered in scales that are capable of human speech.

Biological Traits

The broad variation among the different Grakaenaioi castes is due to the ability of the Queen Mother to shape her offspring at the molecular level. It is unknown whether they possess anything resembling DNA or whether their biology is completely different from Gaian organisms. Human scientists theorize that the different castes of Grakaenaioi possess differential brain chemistry that results in full enjoyment of whatever specialized task they were born to fulfill.
The most common castes are as follows:

• Ambassador
• Broodworker
• Keeper
• Laborer
• Queensguard
• Warrior
• Variant

Genetics and Reproduction

All members of the species are sterile and unisexual other than the queen mother. The queen reproduces asexually by producing offspring that she is able to manipulate and design at the molecular level. She is capable to birthing several individuals per day provided she has the necessary nutrients. These offspring are gestated in biopods for one month before they are mature enough to function independently.

Growth Rate & Stages

Grakaenaioi are born as miniature versions of their fully mature forms, at which point they are placed in biopods for incubation. These pods provide them with nutrients and are maintained by specialized broodworkers. They mature rapidly in the pods, and emerge as functional individuals after one month. From there, they grow to full size within one to eleven months depending on their final size. They have no nymph or other immature stages with variant structures.

Ecology and Habitats

The average Grakaenaios is capable of surviving in the vacuum of space for an indeterminate amount of time, seeming to gather energy from solar radiation. But in order to flourish and reproduce, they require ambient heat and sources of food and water.

Dietary Needs and Habits

Grakaenaioi require the same basic nutrients and elements in their diets as humans, with the exception of fluorine. It is unclear what they subsisted upon before their contact with humans, but part of their treaty with the Omoia Alliance involves the daily delivery of food to Dodan. They seem content with artificially prepared protein and mineral slurries.

Biological Cycle

The queen is capable of hibernating for an indeterminate amount of time. Otherwise, the Grakaenaioi do not seem subject to any biological cycles.

Additional Information

Social Structure

Grakaenaioi are a eusocial species. Since the Queen Mother is the only reproductive member of their species, every Grakaenaios is undying loyal to her wishes. Because every individual is born with genetic memory from the Queen Mother and is custom built to fulfill and specialized task, their society is nearly perfectly organized. It is highly structured and hierarchical, with no movement through the ranks. Every individual is born into their role and fulfills it without complaint until their death.

Uses, Products & Exploitation

After entering into an alliance with the Grakaenaioi, the humans have used them as power sources for driving nearly every aspect of their civilization. Thanks to the Queen Mother's strange psionic ability to replicate the traits of any individual she encounters and incorporate them into her offspring, humans have given her access to Essies with a wide array of desirable talents. In return, she has given human society a number of specialized worker caste Grakaenaioi with abilities such as teleportation and elemental manipulation. These Grakaenaioi form the main work horse of the human colonization effort.

Facial characteristics

Aside from the human-form caste, most Grakaenaioi have heads resembling those of large lizards. For most humans, it is difficult to read emotions on their faces and they appear constantly threatening with their scaly tooth-filled maws. They have large eyes with cat-like pupils and both inner and outer eyelids. Some variants also have long, almost prehensile whisker-like protuberances above their eyes or at the tips of their snouts. Like sharks, they seem to grow infinitely renewable rows of razor-sharp fangs. Their tongues are used for scent collection and branch off into three tips. They are capable of sealing their nostrils shut, presumably an adaptation for space travel.

Geographic Origin and Distribution

Live under the surface of the moon Dodan, in a number of subterranean tunnels.

Average Intelligence

Although all Grakaenaioi are sentient beings, only the Queen Mother has an easily quantifiable personality and intelligence. Her intelligence and wisdom is the sum collection of her countless centuries of existence. The others seem to share in some of her genetic memory but in terms of analytical skills and cunning seem to be of comparable intelligence levels with humans.

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

The average Grakaenaios posses acute sight, hearing, smell, taste, and tactile senses far above that of an average human. The queen possesses an unknown psionic ability linked to her seeming ability to incorporate the abilities of creatures she encounters into her customized offspring.

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

Only the Queen Mother has a unique name. Every other Grakaenaios is identified among its own species by an unknown and unspoken reference. When among humans, Grakaenaioi refer to themselves as "this one" or by their caste or function ("portal builder" or "food maker" or "guardian").

Major Organizations

• The Queensguard is a specialized warrior caste that inhabits the tunnels of Dodan and ensures the absolute safety of Grekaena. No one has an audience with her without their presence.

• The Ambassadors are a caste of human-form Grakaenaioi spread through most human cities that ensure maintenance of the treaty and mange collaborations between the two species.

Beauty Ideals

Due to the Queen Mother's ability to sculpt her offspring at the molecular level, every Grakaenaioi is the embodiment of their ideal standard. A form fitting to its function is their highest standard of beauty. But they also have a love of pleasing aesthetics and an idealization of symmetry. The human-form Grakaenaioi are almost other-worldly in their beauty by human standards. Despite their scaled appearances, they appear soft, gentle, and warm.

Gender Ideals

Aside from the Queen Mother, all Grakaenaioi are asexual beings. They have no concept of gender aside from the Queen, although they understand the human concept well enough.

Courtship Ideals

The Queen Mother is fully capable of producing offspring without any contribution from a "male" member of her species. Therefore, there is no courtship or mating among the Grakaenaioi. Due to their beauty, human-form Grakaenaian ambassadors are often pursued romantically by human diplomats, but are quickly rebuffed with polite confusion.

Relationship Ideals

Absolute loyalty to the Queen and a completely harmonious society are the glue that tie together every Grakaenaios. There have been no recorded instances of discord or dissension among any individuals. The Grakaenaioi often express confusion and exasperation over the lack of unity among humans. They find disharmony the highest dishonor an individual can incur and disloyalty an unthinkable crime.

Average Technological Level

The Grakaenaioi do not seem to use technology. Their treaty with the Omoia Alliance gives them access to the latest human technology if they should ever need or desire it.

Major Language Groups and Dialects

The existance of a Grakaenaian language is a major debate among human xenoculturalists. Although capable of producing various sounds, they seem to communicate wordlessly with each other. Some common scholars believe that they possess telepathic abilities while others argue that they merely have a complex and nuanced system of nonverbal gestures.

Common Etiquette Rules

The human-form Grakaenaioi try their best to emulate human etiquette. In their own interactions, they downplay their own self-importance as much as possible, referring to themselves as "this one" rather than using a name. They consider human bragging very impolite.
If a Grakaenaios closes its inner eyelid, this is considered a polite way to show that one is bored with the current conversation and it should be ended soon.
They do not eat in public.
Although they will shake hands with humans, generally physical contact is minimized.
They tolerate being given nicknames by humans because they recognize that humans are unable to refer to unique individuals without using names. It is expected that humans will first ask if it is okay to call them by a nickname before using one.

Common Dress Code

Human-form Grakaenaioi imitate the fashion sense of human diplomats. Clothing is eschewed by all others.

Culture and Cultural Heritage

The Queen Mother is the center of Grakaenaian culture. Ideas or activities that she places an obvious interest in are quickly emulated by her children. Although her offspring acquire her genetic memory, there is actually a specialized historian caste that preserves the sum total of their knowledge, experiences, and "culture." Since meeting the humans, the Grakaenaian appreciation for culture has seemingly expanded, although they still do not partake in any sort of cultural pastimes such as sports, games, or theater.

Common Customs, Traditions and Rituals

Although much of Grakaenaian society already centers around the individual members serving the greater good of the whole by fulfilling their specialized tasks to the best of their ability, they have a special holiday once a year focused on this theme. On the "Giving Day" each Grakaenaios, including the Queen Mother, commits to spending the entire day improving the lives of those around them.
One of the only other traditions of which humans are aware is the Grakaenaian custom for dealing with their dead. All dead Grakaenaioi are returned to the tunnels of Dodan to be "returned to their people" where they are presumably entombed among their ancestors. Part of their treaty with the Omoia Alliance stipulates that humans will do their best to return any Grakaenaios to Dodan if they should die.

Common Taboos

• Any action that expresses or generates disharmony is strictly taboo.

• Disloyalty is an unthinkable crime. Breaking your word to a Grakaenaios is unfathomably unwise.

• Scientific study or dissection of any Grakaenaios, living or dead, is expressly forbidden by the treaty.

History

The Grakaenaioi originated sometime in the far distant past from a distant star system beyond the Astrae system. According to Grakaena, she fled to Astrae to escape a deadly enemy that was conquering the solar system she called home. Despite their ability to travel rapidly through space, Grakaenaioi are not capable of near-light speeds. Therefore, this journey took countless millennia. Eventually she arrived in Astrae and took refuge beneath the surface of the moon Dodan.
The Queen believes herself to be the only one of her kind to escape from their ancient foe, whom they call the Flare. Grakaena entered a long hibernation beneath Dodan in order to regain some of her strength. She remained in a state of hibernation until 24 EE, where she was discovered by a small mining company from Exesti exploring the moon. Lacking a common means of communication, initial contact between Grakaena and humanity ended in bloodshed.
When the initial mining crew went missing, they were assumed to have fallen victim to a cave-in. However, rescue attempts were unable to find their bodies or uncover the cause of their death. Over the next several months, strange happenings began to occur on the mining colony, with several people assuming it was haunted. It is now accepted that this was Grakaena and her offspring raiding the camp for resources. Two months later, a larger exploration force made contact with Grakaena again. This time she was not alone. The death of the entire mining colony quickly escalated into a conflict that would come to be known to humanity as the Dragon War. Despite its name, the Dragon War concluded almost as soon as it began.
The humans of Exesti kept their conflict with Grakaena a secret from the rest of the planets, as part of the isolationist and independence-focused policies. Their first response to the discovery of Grakaena and the destruction she had wrought upon the mining colony was to send a trained group of Essies to deal with her. Unfortunately, their lack of understanding of the Queen Mother's full powers led to their quick defeat. Humanity has since learned that Grakaena possesses a psionic ability to mimic the traits of any being she comes into contact with and incorporate it into her offspring. Some members of the initial mining party had been Essies, and the offspring Grakaena had produced after fighting them were able to command their superhuman powers.
With every wave of Essies the humans of Exesti sent against the Grakaenaioi, the aliens' power only grew. The Queen was able to produce offspring with more and more powerful abilities to counter those sent against her. In just six months, the power of the Grakaenaioi grew to potentially catastrophic levels. However, in this time span, Grakaena had also given birth to several offspring with humanoid-forms. These humanoid Grakaenaioi were covered in scales, yet they possessed the ability to speak the human language. For in addition to copying the Essie abilities, Grakaena had been able to copy other human traits such as bipedalism and a capacity for language.
Using these humanoid offspring as her ambassadors, she met with the Exesti leaders to negotiate a peace. She explained that their initial conflict had been a mistake. Left with few alternatives due to the overwhelming potential power of the Grakaenaioi, the humans accepted the offer of peace despite lingering hostility and suspicions. However, Grakaena was not content to negotiate a treaty with only the humans of Exesti. She wanted a universal treaty with all humans. At her insistence the leaders of Exesti met with the leaders of the Gaian Alliance and explained the threat.
The other leaders, having no first hand experience with the power of the Grakaenaioi, dismissed the claims of the Exesti government as absurd. Believing themselves more capable, they launched a strike against Grakaena only to have their forces completely obliterated. They quickly went along with the treaty after that.
Following the establishment of the peace treaty known as the Treaty of Meritas, the progress of the human colonization efforts exploded exponentially. Grakaena used her abilities to produce castes of offspring harboring teleportation and terraforming abilities. She "loaned" these workers to the Omoia Alliance in exchange for complete sovereignty over Dodan and a guaranteed supply of food, resources, and powerful Essie abilities to replicate.
The Grakaenaioi expanded as a species in coordination with human society, and has come to encompass the whole of the Astrae system. Now they await, under the leadership of the Queen, for a time when their ancient foe may one day again find them. This time, with an army of superhuman Grakaenaioi and Essies, they hope to be ready...

Historical Figures

The Queen Mother Grakaena is idolized as both the current Queen Mother and also as the savior of her race. She alone made the long voyage to the Astrae system and has brought her race back from the brink of extinction. While there have been other Grakaenaioi who made notable contributions to their society, such as particularly adept warriors, they are not remembered past their death-as this would conflict with the Grakaenaian emphasis on society rather than the individual.

Common Myths and Legends

The story of how Grakaena fled to the Astrae solar system from a distant star to escape their ancient enemy, the Flare , has become a legend among their people. Some xenoculturalists theorize that the Flare is nothing more than a myth, but it is impossible to settle this debate.
Few have heard Grakaena give any details on the Flare, but the few reports indicate that they are an extremely powerful and despicable alien race bent on conquering the galaxy. According to traditions older than even Grakaena herself, the Grakaenaioi have fled from the Flare through countless solar systems over endless eons.

Interspecies Relations and Assumptions

After initial hostilities with the humans of Exesti, known as the Dragon War, the Grakaenaioi have established a peace treaty with the Omoia Alliance. Although the do not fully understand human culture, they find humans fascinating if a little odd.

Scientific Name

Xeno grakaenid

Lifespan

Unknown

Conservation Status

The Grakaenaioi only have a single reproductive queen mother, and as such, are technically one death away from total extinction. Various human elements of the Omoia Alliance pushed for inter-species cooperation designed to to protect their race. The moon of Dodan has been designated as being under their complete jurisdiction. Grakaenaian embassies have been established in all major human cities and the Grakaenaioi functioning as ambassadors have been granted diplomatic immunity.

Average Height

12 meters

Average Weight

4,500 kg

Average Length

36 meters

Average Physique

All Grakaenaioi keep themselves in constant near peak physical condition. With their alien physiology, this appears almost effortless.

Body Tint, Colouring and Marking

Their scales have been seen in every shade of the rainbow, as well as large variations from dull and lusterless to bright and reflective. Some people theorize that the color of a Grakaenaioi is indicative of its personality but others dismiss this as speculation. Most are solid colors, but occasionally individuals have been observed with stripes or other patterns.