NationStates Jolt Archive

Introduction:
Or, how I learned to stop procrastinating and wrote down a factbook

My really-ultra-cool-awesome Kesshite website fell through so I'm going to have to regale you with this humble Kesshite factbook. This is an informal factbook, if you haven't gathered that yet, meant to go into detail about the important aspects of my race. Though the details you consider important might not be top priority on my list.

I'm sure you're familiar with this site: NS Tracker. (http://nstracker.retrogade.com/index.php?nation=Kesshite)

Population listed. "Military" is 10% of population. If you think that's high, keep in mind that the word military includes the creatures that take the place of ships, tanks, carriers, medical machinery, radar equipment, probes, etc.

I also think that the majority of information about nation's listed in factbooks is either self-explanatory or doesn't apply to the Kesshite. Just in case you're wondering though, no, a couple hundred million aliens joined by an overmind don't use representative democracy. Likewise, the economy is far from being capitalist.

Kesshite Gene/Memory Bank (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=12301538)

Sections so Far:
Why do I play the Kesshite?
What is the Kesshite's nature?
Gestalt Awareness

Why do I play the Kesshite?:
Or, the importance of being alien

I'm beginning with a question I've yet to see in other factbooks, but one I consider rather important. You might consider it important as well, or you might think it self-indulgent of me to start what is purportedly a thread about the Kesshite talking about myself.

I like to role-play science fiction because sci-fi and fantasy are my favorite genres. I picked an organic technology base because I'm not fond of the techno-fetishism or BMP (big metal penis) mentality some NS role-players exhibit. The majority of kesshii breeds are based on monsters from science fiction games and movies, not because I'm interested in playing a 'bad guy' race, but because I searched for very non-human looking creatures, and they're almost always the monsters.

At first, I only had three strains, but after I figured out the history and nature of the Kesshite, I realized I could add more - lots more. And I did. Stole critters from Warhammer 40,000, Babylon 5, Mass Effect, Aliens, Starcraft, Magic: The Gathering, Alternaty, Resident Evil, and Giger, then stuck them in a blender called Kesshite, and served them to the message board slightly chilled.

I wanted to play aliens. Not monsters, not humans in funny bodies, and not uber killing machines with amazing powers. I can only hope my execution matches my intent.

What is the Kesshite's nature?:
Or, Green Utilitarianism

Part 1:

The following is a list of criteria I created to define various races. If you ever look under the Kesshite Gene/Memory Bank, you'll notice a category section with various colors. These are the principles those colors are based on.

Moral or Immoral:
Amoral

The Kesshite do not follow a moral code; they don't act in a way the average reader would consider moral, and the average Kesshite doesn't understand human based morality, especially those dependent on abstracts. This doesn't mean they're evil, of course. They don't attack without provocation, don't roast babies or kill puppy dogs, and generally are untroubled by greed, envy, pride, and a lust for power.

Order or Chaos:
Neutral

The gestalt consciousness they share and symbiotic relationship with one another often makes the Kesshite act in an orderly fashion. However, as a group, tend to act in a haphazard fashion. The Kesshite are like a well-oiled machine careening wildly down the road.

Passion or Reason:
Passion.

Life or Death:
Life. This is the main value of the Kesshite, whether the individual knows it or not. Their racial telos, if you will, is to survive, grow, and integrate other races. They integrate other races so they'll be even better at surviving. They grow so they'll be able to integrate other races. They survive, because the better you are at surviving, the more likely you'll grow.

Natural or Artificial:
Natural.

Part 2:

Goals:
Growth, survival, and integration of non-kesshii organics into the kesshii.

Values:
Growth, nature, community, the present, interdependence, instinct, biological diversity, and reality.


Hatred:
The Kesshite dislike that which they see as disrupting the natural order, or threatening organic life. You may see your cybernetic consciousness as alive, the Kesshite do not. Undead hordes tend to be frowned upon as well. Zombies and vampires should not be flying around space, but instead fertilizing plants and providing meals for animals.

Gestalt Awareness
Or, a group mind is a wonderful thing to taste

The Kesshii are a psychic race, much like the Zerg or Tyriod that some were based on.

First off, they have what I've called a gestalt meta-awareness or a network consciousness. These are fancy terms for a simple concept, every Kesshii shares a little bit of its awareness, thoughts, and personality with those Kesshii around it, who in turn share a little bit of their awareness, thoughts, and personality with those Kesshii around them, and so on.

The Kesshii end up with what I visualize as a psychic web that stretches from member to member, across the galaxy. The gestalt kicks in because this awareness is more than its parts, it could be considered its own entity, if you're willing to stretch the term entity to the breaking point. Just like your fingers, toes, teeth, hair, skin, intestine, and the rest are all little bits of you, every kesshii is a little bit of the Kesshite gestalt awareness. It's a primitive awareness, however. It doesn't ponder its nature or plan the next kesshii strain.

It's questionable whether it even has self-awareness, however every Kesshite is aware of it. Like a constant hum in the center of their mind.

Picture this, you're grilling up a cheese sandwich on the oven, you pick up the pan and it slips from your hand to clunk down on your toes. Hurts doesn't it? Pain signals leap to the spine, which causes you to jerk your foot away, then onto the brain, which punishes you by making you aware of the message. Your foot hurts, but that's not the only part of you affected. That pain sensation has sped up your circulatory and respiratory system, your endocrine system is pumping out hormones, your immune system is sending our white blood cells to rush around madly looking for problems, and your muscles are tightening.

You stand there cursing the slippery pan, while there's a tiny havoc going on inside of you that affects every cell in your body. Abet, only a little.

Same thing with the Kesshite, information ripples throughout the gestalt consciousness, and the stronger the signal the more potent the reaction. Kill a kesshii scout, and the /bishops/ three blocks away are going to start prickling because they felt that. Abet, only a little.

Now the second part, the overmind. If the gestalt awareness is the horizontal, the overmind is the vertical. I'm going forward with my human body metaphor. The human body is not a democracy, your foot doesn't get a say in where it walks today. A /bishop/ or /knight/ doesn't get a say in what area it patrols today. The human body has organs specifically created to transmit information and make decisions. The Kesshite has strains specifically bred to transmit information and make decisions, and it utilizes the gestalt awareness explained above to do so.

It's a pyramid, with the /Elder Mothers/ at the top and the beasties usually running around RPs at the bottom. For this reason, some critters are just more important than others. If I gave you the option of losing a foot or your head, I hope we both know what you'd pick. And while losing either of those is likely to upset you, you might be very comfortable with donating a pint of blood. Why? Because while you do need blood to survive, you can easily replace a million so blood cells, no single blood cell is important enough for you to lament its loss.

There are six /Elder Mothers/ and they contain the collective memory, the gene bank, a repository of emotions and sensations, and the ability to constantly monitor respond to the information the gestalt awareness give them. However, what they get is the collective awareness of the kesshii, and their orders flow downward through a huge network of other organisms.

An individual kesshii can no more chat with an /Elder Mother/ than a white blood cell can chat with your brain.

It's important to understand that the flow of information within the kesshii is organic. If you tell a scout drone that your favorite flavor is chocolate, a /bishop/ two blocks away will not have that information. On the other hand, that scout drone could share that information with other scout drones around it, or it could tell a /hierophant/ that could then pass the information on to a /bishop/ in the area. That /hierophant/ could inform it's /mother-explore-ship/ which might consider that information important enough to send it up the line, and someday it might end up in an /Elder Mother/. The chances of that happening, however, are very low.

Kesshite Technology

The majority of Kesshii technology is living. The ships are alive, the communication devices are your boss, and the weaponry is claws, acidic spittle, and shock fields - think eels. There's no sexual reproduction among the Kesshii; everyone is artificially grown. This is usually by the ship that serves as their home.

I describe a few of the Kesshii as being bio-synthetic. This means that they are biological entities, however parts of them are almost mechanical. The scout drones, for instance, have bio-synthetic skin closes off their entire system when outside the ship and protects them from the harsh atmospheres of non-life producing planets.

The ships use cold fission via cellular activity. Yeah, it's a stretch. A big one. Okay, it's a huge damn plot device and I have no idea how it could work.

Walking around a Kesshii ship is a bit like walking around inside a creature. It's warm, wet, and gooshy- imagine walking on tongue.

Many ships are actually filled with fluid, so you swim around. It's neither blood nor water, but an oxygen rich perfluorocarbon. A human could breathe in it, but it's hard on the lungs. Strenuous activity would lead to unconsciousness. A deep cut or gash would result in a lower loss of blood than if cut was exposed to air, infestation is likely however. The liquid retains heat well and is much heavier and more viscous than water.

Cutting open a wall would lead to a second fluid mixing with the first. This is the ship's blood, it's green and glows slightly depending on what nutrients it's carrying. This can be toxic if inhaled.

Kesshite use an inversion drive for FTL travel. This is real space travel done while calculating speed as a complex equation to avoid the problems of special relativity. Time dilation occurs the faster you go. I usually say that it takes a week to arrive in a month and a month to arrive in a week. This is just a rule of thumb I created and not a reflection of the real mathematics at work.

Breeds

Pawns -

The bottom of the bottom. The majority of pawns have animalistic intelligence and rely on their handlers, typically biships, to provide them with plans of action or self-control. They are the basic field unit of the Kesshii and represent a wide range of biological strains.

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/8653/pawnvvm3.th.jpg (http://img155.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pawnvvm3.jpg) http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/2461/pawngrk5.th.jpg (http://img443.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pawngrk5.jpg) http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/2886/pawnggi1.th.jpg (http://img222.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pawnggi1.jpg) http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/3176/pawnsze0.th.jpg (http://img136.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pawnsze0.jpg)

Bishops -

Evolved from the herbivore Dolmodri system, the bishops provide a vital link between pawn groups. They are usually intelligent, practical creatures, their genetics skewed toward the dominant composition of their pawn group. They are also one of the few kesshii possessing the ability to communicate on a verbal level.

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/5156/bishopkn0.th.jpg (http://img155.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bishopkn0.jpg)

Rooks -

The Rook is a Bishop freed from having to manage a pawn group and instead evolved as major defensive unit. The Rook's territorial nature is keen, often overwhelming, and it is often found in areas of importance to the kesshii. It is faster, stronger, and far more vicious than its Bishop brethren, as well as having increased senses.

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/8796/rookqh4.th.jpg (http://img155.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rookqh4.jpg)

Hierophant -

The link between a ship and the other kesshii within it, a Hierophant is a frail blob of brain the hovers in the air using its psychic abilities. Hierophant possess the ability to physically communicate with non-kesshii organics as well as manipulate the air in front of them to create a 'voice.'

http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/5844/hierophantzp9.th.jpg (http://img224.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hierophantzp9.jpg)

Scouts -

The most independent, and some might say personable, of the kesshii breeds, the scout is designed to explore a wide range of areas and report back relevant information to their appropriate /explore-ship/ or handler. Unlike the other low level breed, the pawn, a scout possesses little aggressive or animalistic traits. Scouts tend to show a high level of curiosity and cleverness, a group of scouts can show human level intelligence when solving problems. Though unable to speak, they can understand the spoken word, and are able to project simple thoughts and emotions into another's mind.

http://img380.imageshack.us/img380/6363/scoutdronebl5.th.jpg (http://img380.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scoutdronebl5.jpg)