E T E R N A L - E M P R E S S
- Intent: Ingrid’s final exam after the teachings of
AMCO
when she had to create a Sithspawn species. And she made ghost-like, shape-shifting creatures that can possess others. - Image Credit:
- Banner 1/2, Banner 2/2
- Returned 1/2, Returned 2/2
- ”Lightsider” 1/2, ”Lightsider” 2/2
- ”Darksider” 1/2, ”Darksider” 2/2,
- Eldritch affected, Transformation
- Border
- Headers:
Kainan Wolfe
- More pictures from the species.
- Canon: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Links: Shadow-born | Smoke Demon | Netherworld of the Force | Sith magic | Sith Necromancy
- Name: The Ethereals | Project Helheim
- Designation: Sentient
- Origins: Ingrid L’lerim-Vandiir (Lady Stuztala aka Lady of Progress)
- Average Lifespan: 500 years (probably more)
- Estimated Population: Scattered
- Description: The first individuals were made with bioengineering and Sith alchemy / sorcery from individuals of different species. They were entirely designed and made by Ingrid L’lerim-Vandiir, as a kind of final exam after years of classes that
AMCO
taught her, they are the woman’s first actual Sith-spawn species. He used the basics of Shadow-born and Smoke demon DNA to make the creatures, genetically modified them to create the Ethereals, who became ghost-like creatures. They are all predators and social predators, fed by life-force, able to become completely immaterial, take the form of others, or just occupy others if they need to. Their reproduction takes place in two ways, both of which are quite unique. If necessary, members of essentially any species can be genetically converted to Ethereals under laboratory conditions, but since they will be able to reproduce independently and their individuals will also be Ethereals, they have deserved to be called a species.
- Breathes: N/A | Depending on the shape-shifting/possessing, Type I. II. III. or IV.
- Average Height of Adults: 1.9-2.8 metres | Variable
- Average Length of Adults: N/A | Variable
- Skin color: N/A (they can be illuminated with different colours of light) | Variable after shape-shifting / possessing
- Hair color: N/A | Variable after shape-shifting / possessing
- Distinctions: The members of Ethereals are very similar in appearance. In their general state, they are completely invisible, not visible to the average eye or to technology in general. Typically, they can be noticed by the Force. In the event that they reach the visible range, they may appear to be luminous sphericity to others who can see them. In fact, the body, even in this form, is almost completely invisible or translucent. They almost always wear long body-covering clothing, that is, it seems so because of the shape-shifting, because that part of them, they are their clothing themselves, and the lights “symbolize” the life force that nourishes them. This colour can be different, it’s actually completely random, although most of the bluish Ethereals are closer to the dark side and the gold ones are closer to the light side. If they do not feed, this light will begin to fade, and if it goes out for a while it will still exist on the material plane, before the Ethereals' soul leaves for the Netherworld. The Ethereals, recalled from there by necromancy, are not lit either, only blacks. They gain physical body only through shape-shifting or possession, otherwise they have no physical shape or form.
- Races: The most important thing to note is the different colours do not qualify as a race, it is mostly like hair or eye colour in other species. It plays no role in anything. The Ethereals socially divide itself into races by how its members came into being.
- Wanderers: They are the originals who call themselves just the Wanderers. They are the ones who have been transformed by genetic engineering, alchemy and sorcery. That is, they were once members of some other race and then became Ethereals. Among them were Force Users and non-Force Users. This is precisely why they can be called the “parents” of the other races. They retained their previous knowledge, their personalities, but lost their racial abilities when they became members of the Ethereals.
- Breaths: Or children, at least that’s how they keep and call the Wanderers them. They are the Ethereals who were born from the first mode of reproduction. That is, they were created more, this is more accurate. They are the ones who are created by division, when an Ethereal absorbs too much life force (minimum 3-4 adult life force at once), it divides. The offspring inherits some of the “parent” skills, instincts that are necessary for survival, but it is a whole new soul without experience. And from here they had to "grow up".
- Chosen ones: They are the ones who are created in another way of reproduction. When an Ethereal possesses someone, it is able to infect their victim with a kind of retrovirus that transforms the victim into Ethereal. However, this mode of reproduction is not very safe and effective because it can cure the infection, which is why there are very few Chosen one among the members of Ethereal.
- Returned: They are the Ethereals who have already died, but the other Ethereal members have recalled them from the Netherworld. Because they actually have the same abilities as the living members of the species, they have earned the title of race and are not treated as demons by others. There is a difference in their appearance compared to the others, the members of Returned have lost their light and appear only as a hooded ghost-like figure. But except for everything, they are like everyone else.
- Force Sensitivity: Low
- Endless life: This is a bit deceptive, because if we just look at simple life expectancy, they can even live forever, thanks to feeding on life-force. But they can perish in a myriad of other ways, but in theory, if they are in a place where they can’t be hurt, they can live any long in terms of their age.
- Telepathy: All members of the species have telepathic abilities that allow them to communicate with each other, read in the minds of others, and influence and control the weaker willed. They like to delve into the thoughts of others when they can. Thanks to this they can learn quickly from the others memoires.
- We can be Anyone: Excellent shape-shifters, capable of taking the shape of almost any animal, plant, or intelligent life form, regardless of shape or size. Of course, the more the shape, size differs from their original size, the more energy and effort it all takes. Force Users can even change the Force pattern to make it look even different.
- Immaterial and Invisible: In their original state, they are completely immaterial and invisible, making them difficult to perceive or even completely impossible. Force Users then even hide their presence in the Force to make them even harder to perceive. True, this condition does not mean invulnerability to them.
- Possession: They are able to possess and control bodies if they want to and exist in that form. The weaker a person is, the easier it is for them to do so, although they may not be able to maintain this condition for long. Note: In the case of a PC or NPC with a submission, the owner's consent is required.
- Possession: While this ability has advantages, it also has disadvantages. When an Ethereals possesses a body, it immediately begins to consume the body by absorbing all of its life force. So, unless you want to kill him, you have to leave the body very soon. Not to mention that the strong-willed are able to push the invader out of their minds and body.
- Connection to the Grave: Ethereals are partly derived from demons, so that’s why they’re still attached to the Netherworld, even if they can’t get there on their own. Because of their being, they feel good near the dead and most members of the species, if they choose a body for themselves, do so with the dead. Ethereals that don’t pull towards the Dark Side feel much more comfortable if they don’t have to suppress the host or hurt them, last but not least, they don’t have to fight for domination over the body either. This is why they are quite lonely and do not often seek the company of their peers either. They feel better with ghosts and the dead.
- The Price of the Abilities: In order to be able to preserve their abilities, they should not weaken, starve, and wither away, they should be forced to consume life force constantly. They can actually do this from anything they want, but the process is most satisfying for them and they will be most well-fed when they consume life force from living beings. After all, they are predators.
- Vulnerability: Perhaps anyone would think in advance that they cannot be harmed because of their immaterial appearance. This is not true in any way and with a weapon that can harm them. True, in immaterial form they are more protected from injury, but they can still be killed. They are most sensitive to lightsabers or Force. If they choose a different figure or possess someone, they are also much more sensitive to physical attacks. Not to mention that the Returned can also be killed with the Light Side, or banished back into the Netherworld.
- Hard reproduction: This is especially true for Force User members. During reproduction, when they divide, it is not certain the offspring will also be Force Sensitive, there is only a 50% chance of doing so. In the other mode, when creating “Chosen ones”, the victim Force Users can also use Force to drive the retrovirus out of their body and thus stopping their own transformation and cure them. However, if they keep Force User under Ethereal possessing, they may be killing and draining their life force before the victim is transformed into Ethereal. This prevents the Ethereal from being able to mass-convert powerful Force Users to Ethereal. Of course, Force Sensitive members can learn Force abilities, yet in this case, genetic modification under laboratory conditions is most effective in increasing the number of Force Users in the population.
- Connection to the Force: Although very few members of the species wield the Force, they still feel best in places where the Force is in high concentration, such as around a Nexus. Because of their origin relationship with the Smoke Demon, they are constantly able to sense the greatest fears of others, which in most cases they can’t rule out, only Force Users are capable of all of that, but even they aren’t completely. Since most are not Darksiders, this can have a very bad effect on their mental lives in the long run. In addition, the vitality of Force Users is found to be the most nutritious.
- Beware with the Thoughts: They are partly social predators, so they really like to read in the minds of others, to search for memories (both good and bad). Those with a weaker will may be overwhelmed by these memories and emotions, which may change them, not to mention the affected Ethereals may go crazy.
- Diet: Vitalvore; Ethereals in all its forms can only be nourished by vitality. You may be able to consume food and drink with shape-shifting, but that won’t satisfy your hunger. Even during shape-shifting, you need to be fed with life force. The other case, when possessing someone, they immediately begin to suck the life force out of the occupied person, they cannot even stop this process. Like drain-force, they drain life from living things. They can feed on more than one person at a time; therefore, the more people they are able to feed at a time, the less conspicuous this process is because the victims will be less tired. During a possession, the needs of the occupied body must also be met. Unless they reproduce, they will never consume more vitality than they really need. If someone feeds on a daily basis, the target person won’t even feel eaten out of it. However, after roughly a month of starvation, it takes the life force of a person the size of a human to be needed.
- Communication: But they also communicate with each other and with the outside world in a fundamentally telepathic way. Because all members of the species are telepaths, this is the easiest and fastest way to communicate. They probably understand and can speak several different languages, but they don’t really do. That is, only when they take the shape of one of the walls with shape-shifting did they possibly possess someone.
- Technology level: N/A
- Religion/Beliefs: They are attached to the dead and Netherworld. Very many of the members of the species treat corpses and dead with great respect, as many use them as hosts. They also find the Force very important, and many pray to it because they are aware that without the Force they would not exist. In fact, in addition, they don’t have very different beliefs, at most, what they pick up while living in different societies when they live among them, but that already depends entirely on individuals.
- General behavior:
- Social Structures: The Ethereals don’t really have that, because members of the species are quite lonely and rarely come into contact with someone like themselves. Although members of the species feel each other’s presence and see each other invisibly as well (this is independent of the Force), all of this is especially good for them to avoid each other’s company. Of course, there are those who like to have their peers around them, but on a large average they are more on their own. If only because if there are several people in one place, they can draw attention to themselves because of their eating habits. Although they don’t like each other’s company, they do like the company of other sentient beings very much, although there may be exceptions here. After all, they like to “live” in the thoughts and memories of others. Most members of the species are silent observers, so not many people know about their existence because they are not conspicuous. They love to explore the world and get to know other cultures and worlds. Of course, there are also those who intervene and want to shape the world around them on their own.
- Reproduction: All members of the Ethereals are immature, which is why they are not able to reproduce in the traditional way, as most species do, but there are still three ways to reproduce:
- Cell division: The most common method of their reproduction, which requires the full life force of at least three or four larger living beings - at least human in size. In such a case, these life forces must be completely consumed and the victim killed, and if Ethereal has absorbed all this life force, which is otherwise too much for them, they will do exactly as unicellular beings, divide. At the end of the process, another Ethereal is created who inherits the basic instincts from the “parent” and how they can use their abilities. That is, the knowledge and instinct with which a newborn can survive. If the Ethereal was Force User/Force Sensitive, they have a 50% chance that their successor will also be Force Sensitive.
- Infection/Possession: This method can be controlled by Ethereals. When they possess a host, they are able to select a type of toxin, a retrovirus, and inject it into the occupied person. This retrovirus can overwrite the host's DNA and convert it to Ethereal. However, this method is cumbersome because Ethereals cannot keep the victim under their control because it would drain all the victim’s life force and kill them. Force Users can also defeat the retrovirus with the help of the Force, but in modern worlds, medicine can also easily reverse the process. The process is otherwise a bit painful and takes two to three days. This method is used when someone would voluntarily join them. If a Force User or Force Sensitive person is transformed, they can still use the Force after they become an Ethereal, it won't change.
- Artificial: This method is exactly how the first members were created, with appropriate gene treatment under laboratory conditions. This retrovirus is much more potent than what Ethereals members are able to use, so this process completely transforms the test subject within an hour or two. Gene therapy can be applied to essentially all known species. However, only the HPI Consortium / Spear and the Primyn Group have and have access to the retrovirus in secret. Not commercially available.
- Childhood and Maturity: Immediately after birth, they are considered mature specimens who have inherited the ways in which they can survive, feed, and use their abilities. Parent individuals usually deal with the offspring for two to three days, up to a standard week, and then leave them alone. However, it is not uncommon for them to be left to their fate immediately, as they know everything about how they can survive, they don’t need further guidance. They can learn very quickly from the memories and thoughts of other living things until it takes someone years, Ethereal can learn the same from the minds of others in days or weeks.
- Shape-shifting: One of their most common and accepted abilities. They need all this if they want to interact with and interact with other species. Essentially, all of this is expected of them and most of their members do their best to become even better at shape-shifting to be able to maintain the chosen shape even better, even longer. It is already entirely up to the individual to choose which gent or breed, or how often they alternate. It’s a little surprising if they don’t do this, though it’s pretty weird among individuals of the species and no such Ethereals are discriminated against.
- Possessing: This is also a fully accepted ability, although it has a lot of setbacks. Among other things, they immediately start consuming the host and are able to kill the person in this way very soon. This is why it is very rarely used in a living person, especially only for reproduction. Sure, there are people who don’t care about the lives of others, so they won’t back themselves off, but the majority do. This is why many people prefer corpses. In light of the fact they are shape-shifters this can be quite strange, but the possessing of dead bodies costs much less energy than shape-shifting and keeping their form, or the possessing of the body of a living person, so less life force is required to possess the dead bodies. As long as they keep a body under possession, it rots much more slowly than if they didn't, so they can use a body for weeks or months or two before they have to be replaced.
- Relation with the Dead: Because they are partly descended from Smoke Demons, they are partly related to death and the dead. Or at least they like to think so because they have no connection with the Netherworld, at most through their sorcerers. For the reasons listed above, corpses are highly respected, if they find the dead and do not need a host, they are usually buried and ensure that these corpses receive the greatest final honour they can give and bury. If you happen to come across souls from the Netherworld like the Shrouds or the Shadows, possibly other demons, they feel a connection to them, are attracted to them and want to know everything about them, what they can tell.
- Interact with Others: They do not communicate very much with each other, but they are very communicative with other species. Almost all species are received positively, although this also depends on Ethereal affiliation. In most cases, their true identities are kept secret, rarely shared with others, thus protecting themselves and their peers. They remain hidden in their original shape most of the time and will only be visible if they are already in a different shape. They love social interactions, all forms of communication. It really depends on their character whether they want to help or just utilize the others.
- Profession/Occupation: Most are just silent observers who rarely interfere in the affairs of others. However, those who do can really do anything. It also depends in part on what they like, what they find useful. A lot of people, for example, use their skills as agents, assassins, informants, information traders, or just scientists to help others, but artists are not uncommon among them either. There may be company executives and soldiers among them, but it really just depends on what the particular Ethereal finds interesting and what he would like to do. The possibilities are endless.
- Hunt and Feeding: Many see eating as a sport and call it hunting. Many people like to go to a large crowd to feed on as many different people as possible. Others do it discreetly, and good-natured individuals often prefer animals to sentient beings. What everyone has in common and is a good enough to find Force Users to be the tastiest. Many are specifically looking for and hunting them. Most don’t intend to kill who they eat from, so they steal little life force from a single person. Unless they reproduce, they will never consume more vitality than they really need. If someone feeds on a daily basis, the target person won’t even feel eaten out of it. However, after roughly a month of starvation, it takes the life force of a person the size of a human to be needed.
- The Force: The Force is respected and acknowledged, there are even some who pray to it and worship it like a religion. The Force is especially important among Force Sensitive members. Since Ethereals can be of any nature, this is also true for Force Users. That’s why they can be Darksiders and Light Side Force Users, just as they are neutral. However, due to their eating habits, it is likely that Lightsiders are in the smallest numbers and Darksiders in higher proportions. Although the Ethereals meet little, Force Users are respected among themselves because they are few and able to recall their dead comrades from the Netherworld, not to mention that they (they imagine) have much more contact with the Nether than the others.
Roughly since
AMCO
and
Ingrid L'lerim
formed a couple, they taught each other. It is a fact that the woman was much more receptive to science than the man to fighting, so it was mainly Ingrid who studied and was a really great disciple of one of the best teachers. In addition to the Sith Lord, the woman studied very quickly and well, progressed, and soon scientific work was already their common hobby. Eventually, for little more than three years, she studied all the science and technology that Adrian could teach her. At the end of the study, a final exam followed.The Sith Lord was working on the Project Tartarus at the time, so he gave the woman the same task to work on this. In the end, it becomes clear what you can create. Ingrid called this Project Helheim. By now, she had been a Shadow-born, so she was based in part on her own abilities and partly on the Smoke Demons. Previously, Ingrid had only made Kveld as a sithspawn and worked on smaller tasks, projects, so it was a whole new field for her.
She knew what to do, but now had to thrive without help. Luckily, by now she had enough knowledge to learn or gather from memories so she could stand for it too. Had two unsuccessful attempts in the few months that were non-viable, and finally, after four months, managed to develop a retrovirus capable of transforming living things into Ethereals. The species itself was not so difficult to design from a genetic point of view, the difficult thing was that the retrovirus would not kill the person waiting to be transformed, in fact this part lasted for two and a half months.
Experimented mainly with captured, sentenced to death individuals, and individuals who volunteered because they were terminally ill and had no other chance of survival. But once everything was ready, the Ethereal species was created, the Project Helheim was a success. The created sithspawns were taken to several different planets where they wanted to go, and here they too could stand to expand and the species to multiply. And all this came true. Although she worked alone on the project because of the final exam, after the success of the project, HPI Consortium / Spear and the Primyn Group also got the retrovirus so that they could change even more people so that they wouldn't extinct in the beginning.
While most are hiding, a great many are also involved in the daily life of the Galaxy. They travelled completely unnoticed in the galaxies if they wanted to - climbing on ships in their invisible form or in the form of others - , so they got to almost every point in the galaxy and could actually meet them anywhere, although there is little chance that anyone would find out because of their shape-shifting that what they met. Ever since they were released and lived as an independent species, they have become part of and live in countless cultures, those who want it. In some places they could even get into folklore.
As mentioned several times, most watch the events of the Galaxy as silent and invisible observers, while others, as neutral parties, perhaps helping the Dark or Light Side, take their share of everyday life.
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