Balashu

Basic Information

Anatomy

The balashu are a species closely resembling the bears of Earth. They possess the same anthropoid shape of most of the galaxy's species, being two-armed and bipedal. They have plantigrade paws which are broad and posses five toes of equal size, tipped with hooked claws. These claws are also present on their hands, and are well suited as weapons and for climbing certain surfaces. Their ears are relatively small and rounded, and their tails are short, nub like appendages. These smaller features compared to most other species are for feminizing heat loss.
As a whole, the balashu possess thick insulated coats of fur evolved to keep them warm on their cold homeworld, as well as a heavy mass of muscle and fat upon their frames that further generate and insulate heat. Most often this muscle is unrefined, but with proper exercise both it and the fat are easily converted into a well-sculpted physique. In order to support all this extra weight, the balashu have a denser bone structure than most species, which not only adds further to the girth of their frames but makes it more difficult for their bones to be broken. Resulting in an overall solid build that is difficult to injure via blunt means.
As a result of their evolution to retain heat, balashu can easily overheat in warmer climates, but it is their sheer mass that wears them down more often. As in order to support such a large frame they need to consume many more calories than most other species, but they can go longer periods without consumption so long as they minimize physical activity. Unless well physically trained, intense activity will rapidly lead to exhaustion and more calorie consumption. Thus, many balashu tend towards taking things slow and easy unless urgency is required, which has created an incorrect perception of them being clumsy sluggards.

Biological Traits

There is relatively little dimorphism between the genders. Both males and females have similar builds, with only the wider hips and breasts of the females to differentiate them. Female balashu have a tendency to grow more than males, but this difference is normally only a few decivalen. Examples of especially large female balashu, while they do occur, are rare.
The primary variance that occurs between different balashu is fur coloration. Around two-thirds of the species is monochromatic, possessing pelts that are all one color, and the other half possesses a panda-like coloration that is typically black and white. The single-color Balashu are called Bamall in their own tongue, meaning Strong People, while the patterned Balashu are called Bazu, meaning Wise People. Despite distinct differences, such as dietary needs, they can interbreed without difficulty. However, the patterned gene of the Bazu is dominant, and in almost every case of a Bamall having cubs with a Bazu the offspring will be patterned. Though in such cases it is noted that the black portions of the pattern will take on the coloration of the Bamall parent. This leads to a fair amount Bazu with varying shades of brown in place of the black that most Bazu would have in their pattern.
A rare recessive gene among the Bamall can result in a Balashu's fur being empty of pigmentation and colorless, as well as their fur coat being even thicker than normal. The lack of coloration makes their fur appear white, and these Balashu were once called Shuba, meaning Pale People. The term, however, has a stigma attached to it, during pre-industrial periods, Shuba were considered to be cursed. Often they would be blamed for the severity of the cold covering most of their home planet, and either be banished or killed. While such thinking no longer exists among the Balashu in notable numbers, the fact remains that the term Shuba is considered a hateful word.
There is little variation in eye color among Balashu. With brown, black, and amber being the most common, and hazel being unusual. Very rarely there may be a silver-blue eye color, but it is most often seen among the shuba.

Genetics and Reproduction

Balashu females will undergo heat every four UST years, or approximately two Terran years, and it will last all year long unless they are impregnated. They are only capable of reproducing during this time, and unlike other species balashu heat is too strong to suppress with drugs. Furthermore, females never naturally lose their ability to reproduce. The intensity of the heat often leads to older females, or ones simply not wanting children, to have themselves sterilized to remove the inconvenience of a heat.
Once impregnated, gestation of balashu cubs will typically last one-and-a-half UST years. The resulting children are almost always twins, but triplets and even quadruplets are known to be born on rare occasions. After giving birth, balashu females will not go into heat again for approximately twelve UST years (Six Terran), skipping three heat cycles, which allows them to raise their young from infancy in peace.

Growth Rate & Stages

Newly born balashu are twice the size of the average fully grown human. They are infants for three years. By which time they should be weened, walking, talking, and have tripled in size. At this point they will begin basic education. Balashu hit puberty at around sixteen years of age, and are considered fully mature at the age of twenty-four. They are expected to have finished all mandatory education by this point, thus freeing themselves up for work or the pursuit of higher education.

Ecology and Habitats

As a species built for heat retention and surviving off of relatively little, balashu are best suited for cold and barren environments. More temperate environments are perfectly tolerable as well, but hot and tropical ones will typically lead to lethargy and regular exhaustion from overheating.

Dietary Needs and Habits

Balashu are omnivorous, being adapted to survive off of whatever they have. However, each subspecies have developed distinct preferences. Bamall mostly ranged in the Northern and Southern areas of their homeworld with few edible plants, and had to rely on hunting for sustenance, leading to their strong preference for meat. Bazu historically lived in the forested equator, and relied on the abundant plants, leading to their heavy nonmeat diets that exists today. Balashu that inherit the white coat of Shubas almost exclusively eat meat, regardless of where their ancestry originates from, and seem to detest the taste of most plants. Historically, this contributed greatly to many superstitions around the white furred balashu.
Balashu cooking is normally very heartening and filling, made of broths, stews, and large cuts of meat. Homecooking is very popular, as are sweet treats and, thus, baking. Further, due to their high consumption, they use methods to stretch out the edibility of food. These methods often involve finding ways to recook it safely after it would normally have gone bad.

Additional Information

Facial characteristics

Balashu faces are typically quite large with equally large eyes, which can be brown, black, amber, hazel, or, on rare occasion, blue. Their muzzles are relatively short when compared with many species, but rather broad and lacking whiskers. They are capable of full facial expression. Their small ears point forward when relaxed, and their black noses are ordinarily wet to the touch.

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Most balashu senses are unremarkable when compared to other species in the galaxy, but their sense of smell is exceptionally keen. While not on par with lupari, they are still able to track and accurately identify people, animals, and objects from scents even over a day old, making them adept at tracking scarce prey.

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

Being separate from the UTO and maintaining an alliance with less crossover with the felosen, Balashu naming conventions are unaffected by any other cultures. They tend towards gruffer shorter names for males, but often long and complex names for the females. While family or, more appropriately, clan names still trace back to ancient tribes, and thus are widespread. Balashu consider those with the same last name part of the same clan, and thus will treat them as family even if not directly related. Clan names themselves tend to have a direct meaning associated with them relating to a task or reputation that the ancient clan itself used to be known for, and thus can be easily translated into other languages.
Examples of typical Balashu names are as follows:
Males Names Hagrüf, Omar, Grigor, Almuff, Garr, Hüm, Shimaw, Gonnar, Roga
Female Names Spetslava, Beatalava, Shuushiva, Tolomosha, Kalishkanova, Suputsiiva, Vishgamala, Lurubata, Gümaholna
Clan Names Shukama (Pale Fishers), Amlakall (Wizened of the Mount), Balagül (People of Blood), Gromakdür (Valiant Bastion), Greshbalado (Foragers of Green), Durayoldon (Sweet Crafters)

History

The balashu's history is shaped largely by the lack of many resources necessary for survival. Their home planet of Urasna sits slightly further from their star than most home worlds and, as a result, is a lot colder. This made it hard for life to thrive anywhere on the planet save for its temperate equator. Which grew thick with forests, but was blocked to the North and South in many places by mountains. Because of this, many balashu kept to small clans for survival, spread out over the enlarged polar caps, with only a few fortunate enough to have access to the equator. Save for those with strategically strong positions, these clans were migratory, and would travel to keep from running out of food or running water. While those who did not migrate would often force other clans to pay tribute to pass through their land.
It was the non-migratory balashu that would form the first towns, cities, and nations for their species. Building more permanent settlements where they lived, and discovering better resources underground in the form of harder metals. This lead to them being stronger than migratory clans, but the demand for tribute to pass through soon gave way to the migratory clans instead being used to transport the unique goods of each city between one another, becoming the lifeblood of trade. In addition, the distance between most cities kept major conflict from breaking out in most cases. A fact which was helped by the balashu's tendency to take a long time thinking over decisions.
With trade came highways, and outposts to help protect traders from raiders. The outposts would gradually grow into more towns, and thus expand their nations' borders. So the balashu would continue to grow and develop at a gradual rate despite the lack of certain vital resources. Inevitably, the nations with the more resources would outgrow and vassalize the smaller ones. Thus it was the Bizul Republic, which had control of the equator, that eventually dominated the globe through carefully weighed balance of trade and military might.
Around the time that the Bizul Republic was bringing the last few nations in line, they were beginning experimental flights using erestal powered ships. Which would lead to them finally reaching out to the stars as a unified people, and beginning to colonize other, more bountiful, worlds.
The balashu made first contact with the United Treaty Organization in 1015 UE, when a military vessel running patrol through one of their systems encountered a UTO exploratory vessel. While the initial encounter was tense, once the UTO's peaceful intentions were understood diplomatic ties between them were quickly established. Due to the balashu's habit of pondering important matters they did not outright reject the early offer to join the UTO, but instead took their time to feel them out. The Union's friendly and helpful disposition made it a serious consideration for them. However, the balashu's first contact with the Rynar Collective put an end to all deliberation. Coming into contact with the territorial and powerful alien empire that stood opposed to the UTO convinced the Balashu it was not worth being the Rynar's enemy. Thus while they maintained positive relations and trade with the UTO, they refused to join it, and have not reconsidered joining since.
However, the balashu did recognize the vulnerability of being on their own in the galactic stage, especially after they made contact with another union, the Astejean Tripact, in 1044 UE. Realizing that in the event of coming into conflict with one of the major galactic powers they would be hard pressed to win, the balashu believed it best to establish their own alliance. So they reached out to another species with whom they were on good terms with, the felosen. Having encountered the felosen not long after the UTO, they were the independent power with whom the balashu were most familiar with, and they proved amenable to the idea. Negotiation between the two lasted well over a decade, and in the year of 1059 UE the balashu and felosen established a military and trade alliance known as the Balashu-Felosen Concord. Which has stood to this day.

Psychological Characteristics

As a direct result of how much energy they consume, balashu as a whole tend to take things slowly and easily. This has stretched beyond just physical activity to general mindsets as well. Balashu prefer to ponder over matters, particularly important ones, before coming to conclusive decisions. This causes bureaucracy, diplomacy, and any form of deal made with a balashu to be a longer and more drawn out affair, often requiring a lot of patience. Though this also means that any decisions they make have had a lot of thought put into them, and rarely result in regret on their parts. Once they have finally made up their minds, however, balashu can prove very stubbron, often to the point of anger when pressed.
Should the decision have still proven foolish, they often blame themselves rather than any other parties involved, and a particularly grievous mistake on their part is liable to lead into depression. This is not helped by the fact that balashu have a tendency to deride such mistakes. Such mockery is a behavior that was reinforced by how devastating some mistakes could be to a clan or town in their pre-industrial era. As a result, balashu dislike hasty decisions and those who push for or make important decisions quickly. It is understood there are exceptions. Emergencies often require action rather than thought, for example, but when any time is available to think on a decision then said time should be devoted to thought. This causes the most friction between balashu immigrants and other species, as they often have a hard time adapting to the way other species quickly make their own decisions.
In conjunction with this habit of patient thought, balashu are not known as an aggressive species. They rarely seek out conflict. A fact born from the waste of resources it proved to be on a mostly cold homeworld with limited resources and settlements that were far apart. However, they are highly defensive and can be provoked to anger and violence easily when they perceive something as a threat to themselves or their friends. Such threats are one of the few ways to drive a balashu to fast action.

Origin/Ancestry

Bears

Lifespan

216 UST years (122 Terran years)

Average Height

2.07 valen (25.5 meters) (83.66 feet)

Average Weight

160.051 kilofaarir (300 metric tons) (330.6 tons)

Body Tint, Colouring and Marking

Color patterns run between monochromatic shades of brown and black fur for around two thirds of the species, and a more distinct pattern featuring arms, legs, chests, eyes, and ears of black mixed with bellies and heads of white. This second "panda" pattern may not always feature black, depending on parentage, but will always feature the white. In addition to this, a rare color pattern born of a recessive trait may lead some balashu to have an entirely clear and colorless coat, which will look white in the light.