Codex/Aliens: Non-Council Races

Spacefaring species without the political power to set galactic policy

Batarians
In the early 2160s, the Alliance began aggressive colonization of worlds in the Skyllian Verge, much to the dismay of the batarians who had been developing the region for several decades. In 2171, the batarians petitioned the Council to declare the Verge a "zone of batarian interest." The Council refused, however, declaring unsettled worlds in the region open to human colonization.

In protest, the batarians closed their Council embassy and severed official diplomatic relations with the Council, effectively becoming a rogue state. They instigated a proxy war in the Verge by funneling money and weapons to criminal organizations, urging them to strike at human colonies.

Hostilities peaked with the Skyllian Blitz of 2176, an attack on the human capital of Elysium by batarian-funded pirates and slavers. In 2178, the Alliance retaliated with a crushing assault on the moon of Torfan, long used as a staging base by batarian-backed criminals. In the aftermath, the batarians retreated into their own systems, and are now rarely seen in Citadel space.

Elcor
The elcor are a Citadel species native to the high-gravity world Dekuuna. They are massive creatures, standing on four muscular legs for increased stability. Elcor move slowly, an evolved response to an environment where a fall can be lethal. This has colored their psychology, making them deliberate and conservative.

Elcor speech is ponderous and monotone. Among themselves, scent, slight movements, and subvocalized infrasound convey shades of meaning that make a human smile seem as subtle as a fireworks display. Since their subtlety can lead to misunderstandings with other species, the elcor often go out of their way to clarify when they are being sarcastic, amused or angry.

Dekuuna's high gravity impedes mountain formation. Most of the world consists of flat, open plains, which prehistoric elcor wandered across in small family bands. Modern elcor still prefer open sky, and become restless and uncomfortable on long starship journeys.

Geth
The geth are a humanoid race of networked AIs. They were created by the quarians 300 years ago as tools of labor and war. When the geth showed signs of self-evolution, the quarians attempted to exterminate them. The geth won the resulting war. This example has led to legal, systematic repression of artificial intelligences in galactic society.

The geth possess a unique distributed intelligence. An individual has rudimentary animal instincts, but as their numbers and proximity increase, the apparent intelligence of each individual improves. In groups, they can reason, analyze situations, and use tactics as well as any organic race.

Geth space is located at the trailing end of the Perseus Arm, beyond the lawless Terminus Systems. The Perseus Veil, an obscuring 'dark nebula' of opaque gas and dust, lies between their space and the Terminus Systems.

Hanar
The hanar are a Citadel species known for excessive politeness. They speak with scrupulous precision, and take offense at improper language. Hanar that expect to deal with other species take special courses to help them unlearn their tendency to take offense at improper speech.

All hanar have two names. The Face Name is known to the world; the Soul Name is kept for use among close friends and relations. Hanar never refer to themselves in the first person in conversation with someone they know on a Face Name basis. To do so is considered egotistical, so instead they refer to themselves as "this one," or the impersonal "it."

Their homeworld, Kahje, has 90% ocean cover and orbits an energetic white star, resulting in a permanent blanket of clouds. Due to the presence of Prothean ruins on the world, many hanar worship them, and hanar myths often speak of an elder race that civilized them by teaching them language.

Keepers
When the asari discovered the Citadel, they also discovered the keepers, a docile multi-limbed insect race that seemingly exists only to maintain and repair the great Prothean station.

Early attempts to communicate with or study the keepers were failures, and it is now illegal to interfere with or impede keeper activity. Because they are completely non-threatening, keepers have become virtually invisible to everyone else. Similarly, they seem indifferent to other species, except for their tendency to help new arrivals integrate themselves into the Citadel.

No matter how many keepers die due to old age, violence, or accident, they maintain a constant number. No one has discovered the source of new keepers, but some hypothesize they are genetic constructs: biological androids created somewhere deep in the inaccessible core of the Citadel itself.

Krogan
The krogan evolved in a hostile and vicious environment. Until the invention of gunpowder weapons, 'eaten by predators' was still the number one cause of krogan fatalities. Afterwards, it was 'death by gunshot'.

When the salarians discovered them, the krogan were a brutal, primitive species struggling to survive a self-inflicted nuclear winter. The salarians culturally uplifted them, teaching them to use and build modern technology so they could serve as soldiers in the Rachni War.

Liberated from the harsh conditions of their homeworld, the quick-breeding krogan experienced an unprecedented population explosion. They began to colonize nearby worlds, even tough these worlds were already inhabited. The Krogan Rebellions lasted nearly a century, only ending when the turians unleashed the genophage, a salarian-developed bioweapon that crushed all krogan resistance.

The genophage make only one in 1000 pregnancies viable, and today the krogan are a slowly dying breed. Understandably, the krogan harbor a grudge against all other species, especially the turians.

Quarians
Driven from their home system by the geth nearly three centuries ago, most quarians now live aboard the Migrant Fleet, a flotilla of fifty thousand vessels ranging in size from passenger shuttles to mobile space stations.

Home to 17 million quarians, the flotilla understandably has scarce resources. Because of this, each quarian must go on a rite of passage known as the Pilgrimage when they come of age. They leave the fleet and only return once they have found something of value they can bring back to their people.

Other species tend to look down on the quarians for creating the geth and for the negative impact their fleet has when it enters a system. This has led to many myths and rumors about the quarians, including the belief that underneath their clothes and breathing masks, they are actually cybernetic creatures: a combination of organic and synthetic parts.

Volus
The volus are a member species of the Citadel with their own embassy, but they are also a client race of the turians. Centuries ago, they were voluntarily absorbed into the Hierarchy, effectively trading their mercantile prowess for turian military protection.

Irune, their homeworld, lies far beyond the normal life zone of its star. However, the world has a high-pressure greenhouse atmosphere that traps enough heat to support an ammonia-based biochemistry. As a result, the volus must wear pressure suits and breathers when dealing with other species as conventional nitrogen/oxygen air mixtures are poisonous to them, and in the low pressure atmospheres tolerable to most species, their flesh will actually split open.

Volus culture is tribal, bartering lands and even people to gain status. This culture of exchange inclines them to economic pursuits. It was the volus who authored the Unified Banking Act, and they continue to monitor and balance the Citadel economy.

Geth: Armatures
Armatures are quadruped all-terrain heavy weapons platforms, akin to the armored fighting vehicles of other races. Geth being synthetic intelligences, armatures are not crewed vehicles, but intelligent entities, capable of independent decision-making and learning.

Armatures are equipped with heavy kinetic barriers. Their main cannon, mounted on the articulated 'head' turret, appears to be a highly efficient conventional mass accelerator. It is capable of firing in anti-personnel and anti-tank modes. Some armatures carry drones into battle, presumably for reconnaissance purposes. Others host a swarm of insect-sized repair microbots.

Geth: Hoppers
The geth models collectively dubbed 'hoppers' by Alliance forces are electronic warfare platforms. They can project electromagnetic radiation across a broad spectrum as an offensive weapon. They can also perform cyber warfare attacks against the onboard computers of body armor hardsuits and weapons, adversely affecting their performance.

The structure of hoppers consist of an advanced and highly elastic artificial muscle material. This allows a hopper to compress its entire body for powerful leaps. Hoppers also have thousands of molecule-scale 'barbs' on the surface of their hands and feet, which are used to cling to walls and ceilings. Hoppers are very difficult targets, leaping from one surface to another in rapid succession.

The quarians have no record of any geth models similar to hoppers. This new morphotype must have been developed over the last three hundred years by the geth themselves. This is troubling proof that the geth are continuing to move towards technological singularity. Experts in synthetic life are intrigued that hoppers appear to be even more than the baseline geth.

The identified subtypes of hopper have been codenamed Sapper, Stalker, and Ghost.

Krogan: Biology
The krogan evolved in a lethal ecology. Over millions of years, the grim struggle to survive larger predators, virulent disease, and resource scarcity on their homeworld, Tuchanka, turned the lizards into quintessential survivors. Perhaps the most telling indicator of Tuchanka's lethality is the krogan eyes. Although they are a predators species by any standard definition, their eyes evolved to be wide-set, as any Earth prey species like deer and cattle. Krogan eyes have a 240-degree arc of vision, better suited for spotting enemies sneaking up on them than for persuit.

Physically, the krogan are nigh-indestructible, with a tough hide impervious to any melee weapon short of a molecular blade. While they feel pain, it does not affect their ability to concentrate. They have multiple functioning examples of all major organs, and can often survive the loss of one or two of any type. Rather than a nervous system, they have an electrically conductive second circulatory system. A krogan can never be paralyzed - they may lose some fluid, but it can be replaced by the body in time.

The hump on krogan's back stores water and fats that help the krogan survive lean times. Large humps are a point of pride; being well-fed implies the krogan is a superior predator.

The most widely-known biological feature of the krogan is their incredible birth rate and rapid maturity. Once freed from the hostile cauldron of Tuchanka, the krogan population swelled into a numberless horde. Only the genophage kept them from out-breeding the combined Council races. Now the rare krogan females capable of bringing a child to term are treated like strategic resources: warlords will trade them at diplomacy or (more frequently) fight wars over them.

Krogan: Culture
The harsh krogan homeworld conditioned the krogan psychology for toughness just as it did the body. Krogan have always had a tendency to be selfish, unsympathetic, and blunt. They respect strength and self-reliance and are neither surprised nor offended by treachery. The weak and selfless do not live long. In their culture, “looking out for number one” is simply a matter of course.

After their defeat in the Rebellions, the very concept of krogan leadership was discredited. Where a warlord could once command enough power to bring entire solar systems to heel and become Overlord, these days it is rare for a single leader to have more then 1000 warriors swear allegiance to him. Most krogan trust and serve no one but themselves.

This solitary attitude stems in part from a deep sense of fatalism and futility, a profound social effect of the genophage that caused krogan numbers to dwindle to a relative handful. Not only are they angry that the entire galaxy seems out to get them, the krogan are also generally pessimistic about their race's chances of survival. The surviving krogan see no point to building for the future; there will be no future. The krogan live with an attitude of “kill, pillage, and be selfish, for tomorrow we die”.

Krogan: Genophage
The genophage bioweapon was created to end the Krogan Rebellions. From the start, the krogan had overwhelmed the Council. Only timely first contact with the turians saved the Council races. The turians fought the krogans to a standstill, but the sheer weight of krogan numbers indicated the war could not be won through conventional means. The turians collaborated with the salarians to genetically engineer a counter to the rapid breeding of the krogan.

The genophage virus gained the energy to replicate by “eating” key genetic sequences. Every cell in every krogan had to be altered for the weapon to be fullproof; otherwise the krogan could have used gene therapy to fix the affected tissues. Once a genophage strain could find no more genes to eat, it would starve and die, limited spin-off mutation and contamination. This “created” genetic flaw is hereditary.

The salarians believed the genophage would be used as a deterrent, a position the turians viewed as naive. Once the project was complete, the turians mass produced and deployed it. The krogan homeworld, their colonies, and all occupied worlds were infected.

The resulting mutation made only one in a thousand krogan pregnancies carry to term. It did not reduce fertility, but offspring viability. The rare females able to carry children to term became prizes the krogan warlords fought brutal battles over.

The krogan are a shadow of their former glory. While the Rebellions took place centuries ago, they are constantly reminded of the horror of the genophage and of their inability to counter it. The release of the genophage is still controversial, bitterly debated in many circles.

Krogan: Krogan Rebellions
After the Rachni War, the quick-breeding krogan expanded at the expense of their neighbors. Warlords leveraged their veteran soldiers to seize living space while the Council races were still grateful. Over centuries, the krogan conquered world after world. There was always “just one more” needed. When the Council finally demanded withdrawal from the asari colony of Lusia, krogan Overlord Kredak stormed off the Citadel, daring the Council to take the worlds back.

But the Council had taken precautions. The finest STG operators and asari huntresses had been drafted into a covert “observation force”, the Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance. The Spectres opened the war with crippling strategic strikes. Krogan planets went dark as computer viruses flooded the extranet. Sabotaged antimatter refineries disappeared in blue-white annihilation, Headquarters stations shattered into orbit-clogging debris, ramming by pre-placed suicide freighters.

Still, this only delayed the inevitable. The war would have been lost if not for first contact with the turians, who responded to krogan threats with a prompt declaration of war. Being on the far side of krogan space from the Council, the turians advanced rapidly into the lightly-defended krogan rear areas. The krogan responded by dropping space stations and asteroids on turian colonies. Three worlds were rendered completely uninhabitable.

This was precisely the wrong approach to take with the turians. Each is first and foremost a public servant, willing to risk his life to protect his comrades. Rather then increasing public war weariness, krogan tactics stiffened turian resolve.

The arrival of turian task forces saved many worlds from the warlords' marauding fleets, but it took the development of the genophage bioweapon to end the war. There were decades of unrest afterwards. Rouge warlords and holdout groups of insurgents refused to surrender, or disappeared into the frontier systems to become pirates.

Krogan: Military Doctrine
Traditional krogan tactics were built on attritional mass-unit warfare. Equipped with cheap rugged gear, troop formations were powerful but inflexible. Command and control was very centralized; soldiers in the field who saw a target contacted their commanders behind the lines to arrange fire support.

Since the genophage, the krogan can no longer afford the casualties of the old horde attacks. The Battle Masters are a match for any ten soldiers of another species. To a Battle Master, killing is a science. They focus on developing clean, brute-force economy of motion that exploits their brutal strenth to incapacitate enemies with a swift single blow of overwhelming power.

This change of focus from mass-unit warface to maximal efficiency has increased employment demand in the fields of security and "muscle for hire". Due to the unsavory reputation of the krogan, most of these jobs are on the far side of the law.

Battle Masters are not "spit and polish", but they do believe in being well- armed and equipped, preferably with a gun for each limb. They are callous and brutal, but methodical and disciplined. They use any means at their disposal to achieve their goals, no matter how reprehensible. Hostage-taking and genocide are acceptable means to ensure a quiet occupation with few krogan casualties.

The krogan serving with Saren's forces appear to be returning to the old style of mass attritional combat. They also work in close cooperation with supporting geth units, who fill in the roles occupied by combat drones in other armies.

Biotics are rare among the krogan. Those that exist are viewed with suspicion and fear. The krogan see this aura of fear as a useful quality for an officer, and often promote them. Combat drones and other high-tech equipment are likewise in short supply.

Quarians: Economy
The Migrant Fleet has little economic base, operating in a state of perpetual "hand-to-mouth". White quarian ships include light manufacturing and assembly plants, they lack heavy industries such as refining and shipbuilding. The fleet has tankers for water purification and oxygen cracking, but with the space-intensive nature of agriculture limits food production. A single disaster could destroy the fragile balance.

The quarians earn income in creative ways. Because the government is obliged to provide food, water, air, and medical support for every individual, the Conclave strategically determines the course of the Fleet to bring in resources and income. A species who suspects the Migrant Fleet is heading towards their space often offers a "gift" of surplus starships, fuel, and resources to alter course.

As the fleet passes through the a system, swarms of mining vessels work over asteroids for metals and siliceous materials and cometary bodies for water ice and organics. Quarian miners are adept at locating and strip-mining space- borne resources. This sparks conflict with corporations already working the system. Large mining concerns spend millions on lobbyists and public relations portraying the quarians as locusts, devouring the resources of a system before moving on.

The greatest asset of the quarians is their rarified skills. Most are experienced miners. Due to their life of perpetual salvage and repair, they are skilled engineers and technicians. More than once, they very corporations that lobby against the quarians have made back room deals with the Fleet, arranging for skilled quarians to fill space engineering jobs that other species would demand higher wages for. Quarians are widely hated among the working classes. "The quarians are coming to take our jobs" is a common response to the Fleet's approach.

Quarians: Government
Due to the quarians' precarious existence and the need to enforce strict rationing, government is somewhat autocratic. The Migrant Fleet's operations are directed by the Admiralty, a board of five military officers who are advised by a legislative body called the Conclave.

Each vessel in the Fleet has the right to send representatives to the Conclave aboard the flagship. The number of representatives is based on crew size. Larger clans, with bigger ships and more votes, form the cores of political blocs. Opposition comes from the Outriders' Coalition, with delegates from thousands of smaller ships.

The Admiralty defers to the Conclave's decisions in most circumstances. However, if all five members agree a Conclave decision jeopardized the survival of the fleet, and cannot get the Conclave to address their concerns, they have the right to summarily overturn the legislative decision. After the Admiralty uses this extraordinary power, they must resign. If the Admiralty does not step down after using their veto the rest of the military is obliged to arrest them.

Each ship captain has authority over the vessel, but is advised by an elected civilian Council, just as the Admiralty is advised by the Conclave. This relationships may range from cooperation to polite tolerance to outright hostility, but any captain who overrules his council without good reason is relieved of command by the Admiralty.

Many quarian ships are owned by clans who pool their resources to purchase used vessels from private sellers. Large ships are prestigious for big, rich clans, but a small ship means status for a small clan with enough personal wealth to afford a private vessel. Clan vessel captains are not subject to dismissal by the Admiralty; abusive captains are a "family" problem if they do not disrupt the operations of the fleet.

Quarians: Law and Defense
Although the Conclave establishes civil law much as any planet-based democracy, enforcement and trials are more unique. After the flight from the geth, there were few constables to police the millions of civilians aboard the Fleet, so the navy parceled out marine squads to maintain order and enforce the law. Today, quarian marines have evolved training and tactics akin to civilian police, but remain adept at combat in the confined spaces of a starship, and fully under the command of the military.

Once taken into custody, the accused is brought before the ship's captain for judgment. While the ship's council may make recommendations, tradition holds that the captain has absolute authority in matters of discipline.

Most are lenient, assigning additional or more odious maintenance tasks aboard the ship. Persistent recidivists are "accidentally" left on the next habitable world. This practice of abandoning criminals on other people's planets is a point of friction between the quarians and the systems they pass through. Captains rarely have another choice; with space and resources at a premium, supporting a non-productive prison population is not an option.

In the early years, many quarians freighters were armed and used as irregular "privateers". Civilian ships still show a strong preference for armament, making them unpopular targets for pirates. Though they have rebuilt their military, there are still mere hundreds of warships to protect the tens of thousands of ships. The quarian navy follows strict routines of partol, and takes no chances. If the intent of approaching ship can't be ascertained, they shoot to kill.

Quarians: Migrant Fleet
The Migrant Fleet is the largest concentration of starfaring vessels in the galaxy, sprawling across millions of kilometers. It can take days for the entire fleet to pass through a mass relay.

When the quarians fled their homeworld, the Fleet was a motley aggregation of freighters, shuttles, industrial vessels, and the odd warship. After three centuries, all have been modified to support larger crews as comfortably as possible. As the quarians achieved stability, they began weeding out the ships least suitable for long-term habitation, selling them and pooling the money to buy larger and more spaceworthy hulls. This process is ongoing, as vessels wear out and break down.

While some ships enjoy dedicated cabins with full privacy and sanitary facilities, many more are former freighters, whose cargo bays and containers are pressurized and divided into family spaces using simple metal "cubicle" bulkheads. The quarians enliven these austere spaces with colorful quilts and tapestries, which also help muffle sound.

The day-to-day operation of the fleet - traffic control, station-keeping, supply distribution, and so on - are under military jurisdiction. Though ship captains have the authority to deviate from their assigned positions and may leave the fleet at any time, they are assumed to do so at their own risk. As the Migrant Fleet moves around the galaxy, many ships split off to persue individual goals, returning days or years later.

Quarians: Pilgrimage
When quarians of the Migrant Fleet reach young adulthood, they must leave their birth ship and find a new crew to accept them as permanent residents. To prove themselves, they must recover something of value. This is offered to their prospective captain as proof that they will not be a mere burden on the shoestring resources of the ship.

This process is called the Pilgrimage. Stripped of ritual, the Pilgrimage is merely an attempt to maintain genetic diversity within the small, relatively isolated population bases that make up the Migrant Fleet. If the young stayed and married within their birth vessel, the risk of inbreeding would increase sharply.

Quarians are surgically fitted with their various immunity-boosted implants in preparation for leaving on Pilgrimage. Having grown within the sterile, controlled environments of the Migrant Fleet ships, quarians have virtually no natural immune system.

Quarians: Religion
The ancient quarians practiced ancestor worship. Even after abandoning faith for secularism, quarians continued to revere the wisdom of elders. As time passed and technology advanced, they inevitably turned their knowledge to preserving the personalities and memories of the elderly as computer virtual intelligences. These recordings became a repository of knowledge and wisdom, stored in a central databank and available through any extranet connection.

They held no illusions that this was like a form of immortality; like all virtual intelligences, their electronically-preserved ancestors were not truly sapient. This was considered a surmountable problem; sapience could surely be reduced to simple mathematics.

The quarians began exhaustive research into creating artificial intelligence so they could learn to escape the bounds of mortality and give their ancestral records true awareness. Unfortunately, the life the quarians created did not accept the same truths they did. The geth destroyed the ancestor databanks when they took over.

The the centuries since they evacuated their homeworld, most quarians have returned to religion in various forms. Many believe the rise of the geth and the destruction of their 'ancestors' were chastisement for arrogantly forsaking the old ways and venerating self-made idols.

Others have a more philosophical outlook, believing their race was indeed arrogant, but no supernatural agency lay behind the geth revolt. Rather, the quarians' actions wrought their own doom. Either way, every quarian would agree that their own hubris cost them their homeworld.