The Holy Krutarian Territories

Definition: Theocracy with restricted affiliation to the NoCoZo.

Symbol: A golden silhouette of a squid above a glowing sphere of blue and green light.

Ruling Toposophic: Krutarkilush the Holy.

Krutarkilush the Holy

Population: 1.695 trillion dispersed as follows:

· 1.3 trillion within their home system of Ika Gokuraku

· 330 billion within other Krutarian controlled systems

· 65 billion within other Terragen polities (this number remains low due to restrictions on Krutarian emigration enforced by other polities)

Predominant Clades: Krutarians

Standard Tech Level: Picotech

Psyche, Art, Culture

Metapsychology: Clan like society that ultimately obeys Krutarkilush the Holy their god-messiah. In smaller social groups pure physical strength, intellectual cunning or both often establish rank.

Metaethics: Desire to increase the toposophic level of Krutarkilush. Individual Krutarians will always attempt to impose their will on others, an act that has led to conflict in the past. Large scale totalitarianism is not unusual, a side effect caused by individual members of the clade attempting to maintain their personal power and the highest positions close to their god.

Culture and Art: As dictated by Krutarkilush.

Languages: A tonal version of Anglish modified to use only the letters a, d, g, h, i, k, n, o, r, s, t and u.

Government and Administration

Individual Polities: The Holy Krutarian Territories

Government Type: Clan based theocracy.

Constitution: None (The word of Krutarkilush is the law)

Legal system: Flexible retributive justice - Elimination is a fairly common form of retribution. Within smaller groups extra-judicial execution is practiced when deemed necessary. NOTE: In many other Terragen society’s this would be considered a crime.

Sentient Rights: Officially the Krutarians recognize the Universal Bill of Sentient Rights. Unofficially Krutarkilush has little interest in such things. Krutarian security forces are technically responsible for their enforcement, although a lack of interest and low levels of corruption means they rarely do so. (NOTE: Officials demonstrating too much self-interest (i.e corruption) are often eliminated by direct order of Krutarkilush.)

Economics, Local Infrastructure

Economy: Krutarkilush owns everything. Resources are allotted to the clans for stewardship. Economic endeavors are usually directed towards the toposophic development of Krutarkilush.

Resource Base: The Krutarians currently control 92 star systems. Most are barren / uninhabited, all are targeted for exploitation.

Megastructures: One known partial dyson swarm around M-class star in Economic Development System 25, also referred to as EDS-25.

Stargate Nexus: Unable to generate wormholes locally. Other polities restrict emigration of Krutarians to their territory due to their reputation for conflict. A single wormhole connection exists from EDS-1 to NoCoZo.

Beamrider Network: Intra-Krutarian beam network connects all primary systems.

Military Expenditure: The Krutarian security force has moderate expenditure second only to toposophic development of Krutarkilush.

Trade and Good Relations: NoCoZo maintains trading relationship although contracts are very carefully designed to avoid what has been politely termed Krutarian misinterpretation.

Long Running Interstellar Disputes: None

Sophont Travel

Hazard Rating: 5.0 (Polity generally considered ahuman. Weak enforcement of the Universal Sentient Bill of Rights coupled with an aggressive local population makes travel dangerous.)

Freedom of Movement For Outsiders: Krutarian security forces strictly control all foreign traffic. This is explained as being in the best interests of the visitor. Frequent misunderstandings with the local population can lead to extreme violence.

Environmental Requirements: Atmospheric contaminants and high gravity on most Krutarian worlds may force some visitors to take certain precautions.

Introduction

The Krutarians were created by Krutarkilush the Holy, an ascended bitenic squid who sought to develop a suitable workforce to meet eir needs. Physically robust, and requiring an environment similar to their masters prior to ascension, the Krutarians are the result of this endeavour. Utilizing a combination of genetics and memetics the Krutarians have a nearly fanatical loyalty first to Krutarkilush, then to the clan and finally to the clade, while demonstrating a psychological profile similar to their masters when dealing with outsiders.

Krutarkilush has taken on the obsessive behaviour common to eir species regarding the governing of the Krutarians. Currently e is utilizing them to collect the resources e requires to build what may be a moon or jupiter node. Once complete it is expected that Krutarkilush will transcend to S:3 or beyond. After such an event the future of the Krutarians is somewhat in question.

Description

The Krutarians are a humanoid rianth clade combining homo superior and bitenic squid DNA. Physically they are much larger than baselines with males averaging 2.9 - 3.2 meters in height, while females average 2.6 - 2.8 meters. Muscle to weight ratio is very high providing a strength profile similar to the more commonly known clade Goliath..

Internally they are vastly different than their baseline counterparts. Their blood is a copper based hemocyanin rather than the baseline standard haemoglobin. This provides a few advantages the first of which is not requiring red blood cells, as the globin of hemocyanin is small enough not to clog capillaries. Hemocyanin also has the advantage of being easier to artificially synthesize. This is due to hemocyanin being a simpler protein and it’s ability to be used without generating a cell to contain it.

These advantages come at the price of requiring a higher blood pressure to pump through the circulatory system due to its viscosity. To this end the Krutarians have three separate hearts. The extra work required by the multiple hearts means Krutarians have a higher metabolism than baselines, the side effect being a higher ambient body temperature. Specially designed growths protruding from the jaw and the wide pointed ears serve as natural heat sinks.

The Krutarian digestive system has been modified to handle a diet similar to that of a squid. This has had the effect of making it difficult for them to digest vegetable matter. Their skeleton has been modified to handle the stresses of higher than earth gravity. The bones while larger and stronger are less dense and more flexible than their baseline cousins. A healthy Krutarian is strong enough to slightly change the shape of their bones through muscular contraction / extension.

Modifications for enhanced radiation resistance have given the Krutarians a pink, almost fuchsia, colouring. Krutarians have no body hair of any sort. Micro-polyps along the brow line and a second inner eyelid provide protection as required.

Communication, Senses, and Locomotion

The Krutarians maintain the baseline human body shape and locomotion. Major differences in form do occur in the areas of vision, hearing, vocal communication and pheromone patterns.

Borrowing from their mixed genetic history, Krutarians have visual abilities superior to that of baseline humans. Unlike many of their colour-blind squid ancestors, the Krutarians maintain 3 visual pigments allowing for the full scope of colour perception. Unlike their baseline human ancestors they not only have the standard rods and cones, but also rhabdomere cells. These rhabdomeres allow the Krutarians to see differentiations in polarized light. This makes them nearly immune to the blinding effects of glare and allows them to perceive light planes invisible to the baseline eye. This ability allows them to clearly see objects against a polarized background. An example of this would be a white object against a bright light source. While the Krutarian eye will focus automatically, they also have the ability to manipulate the eye lens at will. This allows exceptional focus on specific objects within their line of site. The disadvantage is that when focused on near objects, those that are farther will appear unfocused and the reverse is also true.

Krutarians seem to have superior abilities in pattern recognition when compared to near baselines. This may be partly due to their masters partially visual communication techniques. Improvements to the inner ear, coupled with a larger than baseline outer ear structure, provides the Krutarians with improved hearing. A healthy Krutarian is able to perceive frequencies from 20Hz - 59kHz, nearly equal to the felis silvestris catus (20Hz - 64kHz) and far superior to the baseline 20Hz - 20kHz.

Vocal communication is normal, as it is with other humanoid clades. Krutarians have exceptionally deep, low-pitched voices and their speech is often referred to as nearly grunting. Krutarian language, originally based on Anglish, has become more tonal in nature with a fusional morphology. Many near baselines have expressed great difficulty in speaking with Krutarians without the aid of interpretation technology. The Krutarians themselves often maintain a variety of implants to aid in communication.

While Krutarians have a much different pheromone pattern to baselines this is generally only evident during their mating practices.

Lifespan and Reproduction

Krutarians have a natural lifespan of about 185 standard years. Although since most Krutarians live under the care of a high tech Terragen society their natural lifespan is almost a non-issue. Due to the extended natural lifespan their developmental years are longer as well. A Krutarian childhood lasts approximately 17 years and is followed by a 9 year pubescent period. Krutarians are able to mate naturally after about 23 years.

Despite their ability to mate naturally, most Krutarians reproduce via cloning. Two genders are maintained to ensure survival if cloning technology were to become unavailable. Changing gender is acceptable, although uncommon, in Krutarian society. Currently Krutarkilush maintains a library of some 2 million genetic templates, although as a S:2 e is capable of producing more at will.

When reproducing naturally the male and female both release a series of pheromones to attract an excite their partner. After insertion the male penis expands to lock in place. This forces the male to complete the act, as he cannot separate until that time without causing the female great pain. This ensures a higher probability of fertilization. Combining the fact that Krutarian males maintain slightly over 3x the sperm count of baseline humans with the fact that Krutarian females are nearly 10x more likely to produce multiple births makes this clade highly prolific.

Environmental Requirements

Krutarians are most comfortable in a gravity range from 0.9G to 1.5G. Their primary habitat the moon Krutarkilush, named after their creator, generates a gravity of approximately 1.3G.

Copper oxides are an extreme irritant to Krutarian digestion, an improvement over standard squids to whom they are highly poisonous when dissolved in water. Although for metabolic purposes they still require 23% average atmospheric oxygen content, they are able to tolerate a much wider range of contaminants than baselines. For example they can tolerate a 3% carbon monoxide content comfortably.

Krutarkilush also engineered the clade to have a higher tolerance for radiation. The average Krutarian can withstand brief full body exposure to the equivalent of 5 grays of gamma rays and nearly 15 grays spread over a period of years without ill effect. The higher tolerance to atmospheric contaminants and radiation has allowed Krutarkilush to employ the Krutarian workforce in environments that would be lethal to baseline humans.

Psychology and Society

Psychologically the members of this clade share much with both lines of their genetic forefathers. From the bitenic squid they have inherited a tendency toward egocentrism, selfishness, task oriented obsession and a difficulty in dealing with non-clade members. From their human ancestry they have a strong social order and a loyalty to the clan and clade.

Krutarians are fanatically loyal first to Krutarkilush, then the clan then the clade. Individuals will follow the orders of those appointed over them, but will always strive for positions of leadership themselves. All non-Krutarians are considered inferior. All bitenic squids who fail to follow Krutarkilush are not to be trusted. This has created a rigid cast based social structure which most members follow, if only to avoid retribution.

They respect strength. Most relationships between Krutarians only work and become stable after one individual has imposed their will over the others. This is true of mate selection as well. Those with the most physical strength, intellectual cunning or both acquire leadership positions. It is a testament to their skill how long they remain in the position. Another culling process occurs within the leadership ranks as well. Those in leadership are more likely to find themselves under the watchful eye of Krutarkilush emself.

Polygamy is normal within the Krutarian social structure with strong individuals maintaining many mates. Quads, as they are referred, with a leader and three mates is the most common arrangement.

Due to their views regarding non-Krutarians, lack of acknowledgement of sentient rights and leadership by strength the Krutarians are responsible for many atrocities. These acts have been carried out against both their own populations and others.

Main Habitat

Measuring 18,090 km in diameter with a mass of 7.7667e+24 kg, the capital colony of the Krutarians is the terraformed moon named after their creator Krutarkilush. Located in the Ika Gokuraku system it can be found orbiting its parent planet a large jovian itself orbiting 2.8 AU from the primary, an F-type star. Krutarkilush was originally a barren EuArean class world with only a trace atmosphere. When Krutarkilush first discovered it a small amat production company was using it as a base of operations.

After acquiring ownership from the previous NoCoZo parent company Krutarkilush began the process of building an appropriate habitat. Unhappy with eirs workforce of nearbaseline and provolved dolphins e began work on the Krutarians. Once there were enough Krutarians available to handle the required workload, Krutarkilush sold off the employment rights to eirs previous staff. Those that seemed unwanted elsewhere where simply removed from the habitat.

With eir chosen people in place, Krutarkilush became convinced e was destined for greatness. A large asteroid has since been moved into orbit around the moon and is being converted into a computronium node for eirs future transcension.

To accommodate eir ever growing workforce, Krutarkilush has expended great effort and resources in terraforming the moon they live on. With a surface nearly 60% water and a thick earth like atmosphere it has been seeded with a rich variety of life. The entire land area is covered in an ecumenopolis which extends many kilometers below ground and into the oceans. The city actually covers 85% of the moon. Most food stock is produced in orbital facilities.

The current population is nearly 1.3 trillion. With a highly industrialized economy and many commercial free zones the Krutarkilush society is expanding by leaps and bounds.

It should be noted that many Terragens find it difficult conducting business with Krutarians.