SELTORIAN

PERSONALITY: Seltorians are hive creatures. They tend to think in group terms rather than as individuals. Seltorians typically use the term “we” instead of “I” and tend to view things in terms of their hive rather than as individuals.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: The Seltorians resemble large, humanoid, Terran insects. They reach a height of 1.5-1.65 meters and a weight of 50-70 kg at full maturity. This seems to be a racial constant, but the large Queens are an exception to this rule. There are two sexes and four castes. All are born from eggs and are about 60cm at birth. They reach their full height within a few months.

HOMEWORLD: Unknown, believed to be a class-M planet in the Tholian home galaxy

CULTURE: The only fertile females are the Queens, who make up less than 1% of the population and live more than a century. Queens continue to grow throughout their long lives and can reach lengths of over five meters. One mating season can produce hundreds of thousands of eggs and Queens will mate many times during their lives. Egg production can be controlled to a limited extent by limiting the Queens dietary intake allowing the Seltorians to control their population and then increase it rapidly when needed. Queens, it should be noted, do not possess particularly high levels of intelligence.

The infertile females are the Workers, who comprise more than 95% of the population and live about five years. Workers are reasonably intelligent and provide most of the workforce, starship crews, and rank and file military personnel. They are trained for their jobs from birth. They seem to be aware of their short lives and work without complaint. Starships will often carry fertilized eggs to provide replacements.

Fertile males are called Rams, live until they mate with a Queen after which they will die within a few days. If a Ram does not mate within a few weeks of reaching sexual maturity they will become infertile and live for two centuries or more as Sages. The Sages run Seltorian and provide the government officials, commercial executives, starship officers, military command personnel, and so on. Sages take a much longer term view of things, and while it would seem that the choice between a short life as a fertile Ram and the longer, more fulfilling life of a Sage would be a simple one, this choice is not one given to Rams. It is more a case of being in the right place at the right time.

LANGUAGE: Seltorian

COMMON NAMES:

FAVORED PROFESSION: any

SPECIES ADJUSTMENTS: +3 Strength, -3 Presence. Despite their appearances of being frail, Seltorians are quite the opposite.

SPECIES ABILITIES:

COMPOUND EYES: Seltorians have compound eyes that aid them visually. They receive a +5 bonus to Investigate (Inspect) and Observe (Spot) tests.

EXOSKELETON: The Seltorian exoskeleton provides additional protection from physical attacks. Treat this as natural armor, absorbing 5 points of damage per attack. See the Narrator’s Guide, p. 91-92.

BONUS FLAW: INTOLERANT (THOLIANS): Seltorians were a subject race of the Tholians in their home galaxy. The Seltorians in our galaxy are on a mission of extermination against the Tholian refugees in the Tholian Assembly. If a Seltorian encounters a Tholian (either in person or in space) they must pass a test (TN=15) to resist the urge to attack immediately.

SELTORIAN HISTORY

The Seltorian race resides in the original Tholian home galaxy. Prior to the fall of the Tholian Empire, the Seltorians occupied the position of “most trusted subject race” within that galaxy and maintained their own ships and shipyards. There is some indication that the Seltorians might not have been the only one to successfully hold that position, but were the only one’s to successfully revolt. The Seltorian fleet acted as auxiliaries and reserves to the Tholian Navy and Seltorian troops, being more suited to the conditions on most worlds with sophont populations, did the bulk of the work in enforcing the Tholian Will.

Some scientists speculate that the Seltorians were the result of a genetic-engineering project by the Tholians performed on a semi-intelligent insectoid species native to a planet in the Tholian home galaxy. The intent of the project was to create the perfect servant species and in this it failed. This seems to be the basis of the racial hatred the Seltorians have toward the Tholians, and may provide a more powerful reason for their revolution than the fact that the Tholians were oppressive rulers or the theory that the Seltorians wanted to keep the profits of a galactic empire for themselves.

The Seltorians were never innovators and used whatever weapons the Tholians provided. Even after the Tholians were overthrown, the Seltorians never developed new ships or technologies and never thought that they should or could have done so.

Seltorian ships were given large numbers of shuttlecraft and troops to deal with rebellious planets. They were also fitted with a device called the Shield Cracker, which could knock down shields while leaving the target vessel intact to allow it to be boarded. This policy of capturing rebellious ships rather than destroying them was a key facet to the stability of the Tholian Will. Captured ships provided computer cores and prisoners for interrogation and provided the lion’s share of the Tholian’s military intelligence one any given rebellion started.

SELTORIAN REVOLUTION

At some point before the Seltorian revolution Seltorian Sages stumbled upon a shield cracker wave pattern that disrupted Tholian Webs. This was quickly (and secretly) developed into a weapon called the Web Breaker. The Seltorian shipyards secretly produced components their shield crackers into web crackers in mass quantities and installing them on their ships. By the time the Tholian intelligence services became aware of this and destroyed the shipyard that discovered the technology and killed thousands of Seltorian Sages, hundreds of copies of the blueprints and thousands of components had already been distributed. The Seltorian revolution lasted only a few years as the Tholians lost base after base to the growing rebel fleets.

SELTORIAN TRIBUNAL

After the success of their revolution, the Seltorians simply replaced the Tholians as the rulers to the galactic empire. It was well known that some Tholian fleets and other forces had escaped the collapse of the Tholian Will. The leaders of the Seltorian Suzerainty disagreed over how to handle these refugees. One faction favoring letting them go in peace, another demanding the remaining ‘oppressors’ be hunted down and destroyed. A political compromise was reached, where the Seltorian Tribunal – a sort of ‘war crimes commission’ – was established to hunt down and exterminate the remaining Tholians.

The Seltorian Tribunal tracked one group of Tholians to a small star cluster just outside their home galaxy; the bulk of the Seltorian fleet was mustered and smashed the Tholian redoubt before they could assemble a counter-revolutionary strike force. This campaign gave the Tribunal more credibility as they discovered at least one group of Tholian refugees who were planning a return to power. Several other groups quit the Tholian galaxy entirely – at least one headed toward the Milky Way.

A Seltorian hive ship of incredible size was built and dispatched to the Milky Way in search of the fleeing Tholians. The Seltorians tracked the Tholians to their enclave in what the Klingon’s claim as Imperial territory.

The Seltorians negotiated a treaty with the Klingons for permission to set up a colony and shipyard near the Tholian Assembly. The Seltorian fleets provided much needed support for the Klingon Navy’s Tholian Border Harassment Squadron.

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