Eocin Chiyat
Peacock
- Intent: To submit the end-result of Erakhis' obsession with bioengineering.
- Image Credit: The Jove by Andrei Cristea
- Canon: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Links: Human, Arkanian, Givin, & Abyssin.
- Name: Homo Ingenium (Offical), Scions of Luminex (Poetic)
- Designation: Sentient
- Origins: Erakhis | The Erakhian Federation
- Average Lifespan: ~300+ Galactic Standard Years
- Estimated Population: Planetary; 90% of the population resides within the Luminex System.
- Description: Diversity. Few words describe the Scions of Luminex better, perhaps with the exception of "eccentricity". Born from a wide range of "genetic templates" formed by the intermixing of dozens of DNA sources and careful refining by skilled bioengineers, Scions are designed with wildly different skill sets and unique adaptations - and the differences only increase thereafter. They are, however, almost universally extremely intelligent, near-suicidally curious, and thoroughly dismissive of menial or "boring" tasks.
- Breathes: Type I
- Average Height of Adults: 1.7 metres
- Average Length of Adults: N/A
- Skin Colour: Greyish-Yellow with very visible veins, though dermal implants and cosmetic bioengineering are common enough that the colour and texture of one's skin is more a personal choice than anything else.
- Hair Colour: N/A; Scions are naturally hairless, though many graft synthetic hair onto their scalps - in true Erakhian fashion, this ranges from completely regular hair to luminescent synthetic variants that undulate with the colours of the rainbow or even a person's emotions!
- Distinctions: Scion males are shorter on average than their human counterparts but the height difference between the genders is minimal; indeed, the differences between the sexes is less apparent in general, both culturally and biologically. They tend to mature much as a human does, but rarely display outwards signs of age, making it almost impossible to tell a twenty-year-old from a two-hundred-year-old, especially since the former could very well choose to make themselves look like an ancient human.
- Races: The Scions of Luminex are not a conventional species, per se, but rather the amalgamation of centuries of rampant genetic engineering blended together by the mixing of genetic templates and constant innovations. Given their propensity for further self-improvement, the closest one comes to "races" is how and to what degree a given group augments and cosmetically alters themselves.
- Force Sensitivity: Low; numerous attempts have been made to engineer Force Sensitivity into the species, though none but random chance have succeeded, to the endless frustration of generations of bioengineers; Force Sensitive Scions remain rare and highly cherished.
- Ingenious by Design: Created by splicing some of the most intelligent species in the galaxy, a human genius would merely be average by Scion standards and even young children are typically able to mentally solve complex equations.
- Imperishable: Lacking the regenerative abilities of the Abyssin, Scions barely heal faster than Humans - but they do heal better; they rarely scar or fall ill, are resistant to radiation, and their cells replicate near perfectly, keeping them from ageing in the traditional sense.
- Technophilia: Scion bodies are unusually receptive to further augmentation, allowing the replacement of organs and the use of extensive cybernetics with minimal fear of rejection, only further extending their longevity.
- Engineered: Engineered as opposed to evolved, Scions' streamlined bodies do away with evolutionary holdovers and the capacity for natural reproduction in the name of efficiency - their templates are often augmented with alien DNA or otherwise tampered with, which could result in better eyesight, even more sophisticated brains, the ability to breathe underwater, et cetera, et cetera.
- Technological Dependency: Designed for a modern galaxy, Scions are unable to properly function in primitive societies - their bodies don't store the fat reserves used by humans to survive food scarcity and their minds are wholly unsuitable for menial labour and repetitive tasks.
- Cancerous Immortality: The very same changes that prevent them from deteriorating with age also makes the Scions exceedingly vulnerable to cancer; few get to their late thirties without having to start taking anti-cancer drugs and while current models indicate that they could theoretically live forever, after three-hundred or so years it would be a constant game of "whack-a-tumor".
- Chaotic Minds: While their bodies are (supposedly) near-perfect, their minds are a different matter altogether - Scions tend to develop eccentricities with age and are infamous for their odd combination of near-suicidal curiosity and widespread thanatophobia.
- Engineered: As mentioned above, Scions are incapable of natural reproduction - they usually have reproductive organs, but the streamlined nature of their genomes are ill-suited to be "mixed and matched" except by licensed bioengineers, and so they were made universally sterile to avoid any "unfortunate accidents". Almost all Scions are born from sophisticated artificial wombs, necessitating a high level of medical sophistication and significant technological infrastructure merely to propagate their species.
- Diet: Omnivores; tend to subsist on a diet of plant-based foods and synthetic meat, with occasional seafood. They are generally able to consume a broader diet than humans but struggle to digest uncooked and unprocessed foodstuffs, especially meats.
- Communication: Scions are almost without exception multilingual, with illiteracy being all but unheard of - where it does occur, it is considered a gross failure of the local educational system and likely to provoke intense scrutiny. Their first language is typically Erakhian Basic, which is, simply put, regular Galactic Basic Standard but "refined" by four centuries of anal-retentive linguists.
- Technology Level: High Galactic; a society of geniuses obsessed with scientific advancement, Scions tend to excel in any academic field, especially medicine, cybernetics, bioengineering, and anything to do with droids. Their society is inundated with technology to the point where a large portion of the population would be completely unable to function if moved to a pre-automation society.
- Religion/Beliefs: Scions are, more often than not, fairly sceptic beings - a result of their propensity for intellectual independence and their Erakhian origins. They tend to see the Force as something "annoyingly undefinable" or "exhilaratingly esoteric" and rarely congregate in any sort of orthodox religious, spiritual, or even political structure, largely due to a near-pathological propensity for constant debate. As a whole, they tend to adopt a fairly meritocratic world view, with a focus on intellectual achievements and a disregard for physical excellence nourished by generations of relying upon droid servants and vat-grown Gene Thralls for anything even resembling menial labour.
- General Behaviour:
- Families and Reproduction: Scion social structures are generally fairly loose, with an emphasis on individual choice - children are not expected to care for ageing parents and parents are not required by law to actually keep their children, only to either A: provide them with all the care they require or B: renounce any claim to their offspring. Actual families, too, are very diverse - given the archetypically Erakhian propensity for bioengineering and artificial wombs - external devices that function much like a female womb would - unusual families often form, including pairs of any species or sex, groups of people, or even the state or local authorities commissioning children to match projected population growth, should fewer than normal earn "Reproductive Rights" in an administrative year.
- Childhood and Adulthood: Scion upbringings tend to place immense value on intellectual development and personal choice, with even young children encouraged to make decisions for themselves - albeit not life-changing ones. The Age of Responsibility is sixteen, by which time their bodies are mostly finished growing. Intellectual Maturity is considered a completely separate term and determines eligibility for certain government positions and life-changing decisions (including adopting/commissioning children); though it usually comes after the Age of Responsibility, truly exceptional individuals have been known to be awarded the status as early as ten! Generally speaking, most achieve this milestone in their mid-twenties, with those who don't achieve it by forty being considered "a bit dense".
- Education and Exploration: Naturally curious and famously academic, the vast majority of Scions pursue higher education of some form, with some remaining in the educational system for decades or even centuries! Their curiosity is not confined solely to the safety of academia, however, and many of their kind eagerly pursue esoteric experiments in their own spare time or set out on explorational missions to the depths of the Unknown Regions and stranger places yet.
- Freedom and Security: Scions as a whole tend to place immense value on their own freedom, especially in personal and intellectual matters, and often struggle to keep their thoughts to themselves if living in an autocratic state. Paradoxically, very few of them seem to mind the fact the Erakhis is a surveillance state extraordinaire - this is not a biological trait, however, but the result of the vast majority of them growing up in a society where privacy is something that relates to other people, not the state. The state is always watching.
Throughout galactic history, numerous technologies have been developed to alter genomes, often for selfish reasons, with the various experiments of the Arkanians being especially notable. As a whole, such efforts have been seen as somewhat dubious by the galactic community as a whole, especially in the years after the Clone Wars, with taboos concerning self-experimentation being especially prevalent.
Erakhis, separated from the rest of the galaxy by the "Long Silence" of the Four Hundred Year Darkness on account of its lacking HoloNet infrastructure, developed along very different lines.
With draconian quarantine laws imposed to stave off the threat of the Gulag Plague, great efforts were made to create a largely autonomous workforce; when these efforts paid off, the need for organics occupying positions of menial labour lessened greatly, just as the need for creatives and those gifted with unusual intellects grew.
Having already begun tinkering with base human genomes in order to create perfectly obedient servants - later dubbed "Gene Thralls" so as to make the whole thing seem less like slavery - Erakhis' bioengineers, especially the relentlessly self-perfecting transhumanists of Freehold Merhsk, slowly began to alter their own genomes and that of their offspring to better suit the new conditions of their new society.
As the centuries passed, such enhancements became more and more abundant, more and more expansive, more and more refined. Somewhere in the early 700s, this eventually resulted in a landmark decision by the Committee for the Preservation of Biodiversity and the Furtherance of Genetic Viability - the differences were now so great that these enhanced humans were, in fact, no longer human - far from condemnation, this was seen more as a statement of inevitable fact by most. Fringe elements of Erakhian society considered this to be a "wake-up call", but were politely ignored.
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