Gek
Basic Information
Anatomy
The gek appear very similar to the human concept of "the greys." However, they are not little and they are far weirder. Like the little grey men (who don't actually exist as far as we know), the gek have larger than average skulls with large eyes and thin necks. That is where the similarities end though, gek have blue skin similar in shade to turquoise; and their eyes are also blue, although more akin to the color of a sapphire. They are very thin and tall, with strangely shaped three jointed legs that have tripod like feet. Their arms are just as long, although only two jointed like the arms of humans, their hands having only three fingers and one thumb that end in circular pads that look like the hands of a tree frog. Their bones are porous, but incredibly dense, allowing them to tolerate earth like gravity. However their biology is not similar to mammalians at all, being more akin to fungi.
Genetics and Reproduction
Remember how I said above that they were more similar to fungi. This is where that statement becomes true. The gek have no form of sexual reproduction, in fact, they do not have a concept of male or female. They have calculated their species DNA to have over 1.5 million different genders, and the ways in which these varying genders interact to produce new members of their race is quite interesting. Like fungi, when a gek finds a suitable partner, the two enter into an agreement to raise any viable offspring that are produced from their union. The two enter into an enclosed space, and there release their spore clouds. These spores float down amongst each other and intermingle DNA. If no viable offspring are produced, they clear the space and try as many times as needed to produce an offspring. Once a viable offspring(s) is produced, the two gek who made it proceed to raise it into their culture until the offspring reaches maturity.
Growth Rate & Stages
The gek only keep viable offspring, i.e. any creature like themselves produced in the process of procreation. So little is known about any other gek subspecies or genera. But a great deal is known about the gek we do see. Once a viable offspring can be removed from where it was grown, the gek do so. Already the creature is somewhat capable of supporting itself, however, the gek consider it to be a child. It grows and learns rather quickly, and is taught everything that its parents and community can teach it about gek culture and the world as a whole until about the age of forty-nine. Once they reach that crucial time, the young gek is exiled by its community for a year and is forbidden to socially interact with other gek. This period of exile is known to the gek as the "time of reflection," in which the young gek explores their inner mind, without the presence of any other individuals to distract them from self reflection. The point of this exercise is to demonstrate the importance of the community as a whole, but also teach important lessons of self reliance and independence, and to also promote personal discovery. After the year of exile, the young gek is allowed to return to their community and family, where they share what they have learned about themselves, and the world as a whole. It is then that the gek are considered to be fully mature, and then become full members of the community.
Dietary Needs and Habits
The gek diet is hard to pin down. When younger, they tend to eat a slurry of nutrient and bacteria rich slop of unknown origin (I know exactly what's in it, but its rather gross). However, as they get older, they tend to eat a "more normal" diet of proteins from other creatures, plants, and carbohydrates. But how they eat it is more interesting than what they eat. You see, the gek have no mouths. They consume material with strange mycelial structures that they release from their finger tips. The mycelia break the food into smaller and smaller chunks as the gek holds their food, they then draw those small chunks into holes that open on the tips of their fingers and/or toes. These particles of food are then drawn into sacks in their body that contain bacteria that breaks down the food, and produces the nutrients they need to survive as waste which are then absorbed by a lining in these sacks, and are distributed to the rest of the body by the gek's "blood" stream (its not actually blood, but it serves the same purpose of delivering oxygen and nutrients to the rest of the bodies cells). However, as far as their protein and vegetable diet is concerned, the gek prefer to eat things that have begun to rot. They claim it allows them to more easily break down and absorb the nutrients.
Additional Information
Social Structure
The gek are very community oriented individuals and are fiercely loyal to the community that raised them. In the distant past, before the gek attained some semblance of world peace on their planet; they would often go to war with other communities of gek. These wars would sometimes be quite brutal, and other nearby communities might have been forced to pick sides. But now, they have a world government that dictates the rules of those conflicts. Those gek communities who refused to sign the treaty that declared the rules upheld by the world government were eradicated as dangerous malefactors and rogue governing bodies.
Facial characteristics
As state previously, the gek look similarly to human depictions of the greys in media. However, they lack a mouth, their heads are smaller than the depiction, and they have a large nasal cavity and nostrils, but no nose. They can flex the muscles around their nasal cavity to open or close it, but while it is closed they cannot take in as much oxygen.
Average Intelligence
The gek's level of intelligence far outstrips a humans. However, since we (as humans) have passed a certain intellectual establishment threshold, the gek consider human beings to have the potential to reach their same level of intelligence.
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
The gek have many of the same senses we (as humans) do. Their eyesight is a little better than ours, as they can see far more than the visible spectrum of light. But because of this, their senses of hearing is less than ours own, and their sense of taste is almost nonexistent. However, they have a very unique sense that no other creature we know of has; they can read minds. Well, that is a bit of a misleading statement. They don't read minds like you or I would read a book. According to them, most living organisms with a complex neural network generate an electromagnetic field. The thoughts of those living things cause disturbances in that field. Most of these disturbances can be picked up by machines and electronics, however the changes are so subtle that no mechanical device sensitive enough has been developed that can read and interpret that data. The gek have an organ in their brain that can amplify these signals like a radio antenna, and the organ can then read the subtle changes in the fields pulses and translate them to produce a coherent stream of thoughts from the individual they are reading. The gek are also capable, of transmitting and amplifying their own signals so that even less developed creatures can read what they are thinking. In short, they have telepathic capabilities. They also have a minor form of telekinesis, which they can use to make small objects float.
Civilization and Culture
Naming Traditions
The gek do have their own naming tradition and language. However, the gek language is impossible to reproduce without the organ needed to vibrate parts of the skull at different frequencies to produce it. Gek names and even language are completely unintelligible to every other species save the gek themselves. Most of the time however, the gek use telepathy to communicate with others, learning the audible sounds of a language by sifting through the thought patterns of those speaking to them, and connecting the things they say with the images that the species thoughts produce about those words. This isn't the most efficient method for learning a language, but it is what they choose to employ on first contact.
Because of this, the gek don't use traditional naming schemes from their own language when interacting with other cultures. They may ask for a translation of the concept of their name when they arrive, and that is the name that they use with that culture. Some just pick a name rather than bother asking for a translation of their own because they like how the name sounds. So their aren't really any common naming traditions for gek.
Major Organizations
It was the gek who first conceived of the Galactic Confederation. There are other gek organizations, but many are bound to the planet they operate on, rather than any other system.
Beauty Ideals
The gek find beauty in the natural form that life takes on their planet. Having been on Gek (the planet, not the people), I can say that while their planet is strange, it is beautiful.
Gender Ideals
Since the gek have no concept of binary gender, they don't have a gender ideal. Any other gender of gek, can potentially procreate with any other gender, and those genders do not produce extreme biological inconsistencies in their viable offspring.
Courtship Ideals
Courtship between gek is a rather rigid thing. There is no romance in a gek courtship, rather it is three things: calculated, emotionless, and entirely out of practicality. While they do experience love for one another, it is more akin to the love you might feel for a cherished member of your family, rather than wild lustful abandon. For the gek, the experience of raising their children and community is what brings them pleasure and satisfaction. They actually find the idea of "sexual interaction," from species like taurians, wrethi, and humans, to be a rather disgusting and primitive means of passing on your genetics. However, this is not a belief held by most gek; no, its held by their ENTIRE SPECIES. [So keep this in mind if you choose this race for your character.]
Relationship Ideals
The gek believe in a very community focused system, while the individual is important in the community, the community takes precedence over the individual most of time. This view of relationship is best seen on their home planet, but it does exist in the communities they build wherever they go.
Average Technological Level
The gek are the most scientifically advanced species native the galaxy. They were the first to produce a Driftspace Drive, and have begun research with human engineers on Earth to combine it with early versions of the warp drive to produce a ship that can cross the gap between galactic clusters. This is their most well known piece of technology, however, they have invented many more useful things. Lypridean probes (which are used to perform surgery on microscopic scales), Pran Fuselages (used to funnel dark matter and use it as a fuel source for ship propulsion), and photon torpedoes (like the ones from Star Trek) were all developed by gek scientists.
Common Dress Code
The gek often where long sweeping robes and articles of clothing with metal filigree and design enriching the fabric. Their clothes typically use a particular pattern of color, with different communities using different colors to distinguish which community they come from. They do not where any form of foot wear or gloves unless they have to. When they are not certain if the planet they will be landing on will support them as life forms, they typically use specially designed space suite, like any reasonable astronaut would.
Common Customs, Traditions and Rituals
When greeting a people (be it the members of a different community or a different species) the leader is the first to step forward, holding their right arm out in front of them in the shape of a capital L (the bottom portion facing their body) with the open palm of their hand facing their left, they bow at the waist, keeping their arm in front of them the entire time. Only then do they offer any form greeting.
Interspecies Relations and Assumptions
The gek try to avoid interactions with any creature that has not passed a certain threshold of intellectual and scientific development. This isn't from the same view as other galactic empires of the past, that such creatures cannot be capable of intelligent thought. Rather, they are conscious that such creatures may possess such intelligence, and that interfering with their intellectual and technological development might cause more harm than it does good. It may cause a species to achieve certain scientific advancements before that species is conscientious of the sapience of other living organisms. Such a catastrophic event could lead to the death and potential subjugation of countless species, and could spark an intergalactic civil war. It is why, they did not interact directly interact with humans as species until they detected a powerful space-time ripple effect near Mars in the year 2062 CE. They realized that at least one or more human nations working together have figured out a different method of "faster than light travel." This is what lead to them and the Galactic Confederation, to try and bring humans into the fold and educate them just enough so that they don't destroy the galaxy's fragile political environment.
Lifespan
250 Earth years
Average Height
2.1-2.4 m
Average Weight
140-190 kg
Average Length
2.2 m from hand to hand
Average Physique
Despite their size, the gek are relatively weak physically. Their bones, while dense, are easier to break than human bones since they are far more porous..
Body Tint, Colouring and Marking
A gek's skin is a light shade of blue, and that is the same for every gek. They do have markings on their body, but these markings aren't noticeable unless you are looking at their skin in the UV spectrum of light.
Geographic Distribution
