Canonical History of the Supremisby Brantley and Shadar Revised: August 07, 2010 , Rev3
(While this document focuses on the modern period of Supremis history, you will find embedded references to the ancient history and lore of Homo Sapiens Supremis, the Galen and associated races.) Supremis History - Modern Period1011AD to 1600AD A Galen goddess by the name of Skietra and her extraction team abducted thousands of humans from northern Sweden in 1011AD, thus starting the Supremis Procreation Experiment, although most Galens refer to it negatively as Skietra's Folly. Skietra loaded the Swedes on shuttles for the journey through the near-Earth wormhole, which was too small for long-range interstellar vessels, and then transferred the abductees to a colony ship on the other side. This was standard operating procedure for Harvests from Earth. Harvesting had been done many times before by a race of aliens that the Galens referred to as the Seeders. Both the seeding of Earth-like worlds and a number of early scientific experiments on humans had been sponsored by the Galen. In fact, the Galens had returned many of their early experiments on humans (an enhanced race they called Homo Sapiens Supremis) to live on Earth, starting nearly 4000 BC. Their presence among humans formed the basis for the deities of the pagan religions of Greece, Pre-Christrian Rome and the Norse Asatru. (See a very brief summary of this history.) But Skietra's Harvest was different, as she intended to begin a genetic experiment aimed at creating a race of super-beings to serve as surrogate Procreators for the Galen themselves. In so doing, she selected a small population of genetically homogeneous humans living in a village in what was called Scania, and is today the northern half of Sweden. Tall, athletic, blonde, blue-eyed, they had never met or intermarried with any outside race, thus they carried only the recessive genes for the last two traits. We can take it that the abductees were at least partially enhanced by Galen during the journey, for ordinary humans could not have survived a landing on Velor, a planet with six times the surface gravity of Earth. Velor was to serve as the laboratory for the Grand Experiment -- it was a world with a gold core, as was Daxxan, the other habitable planet in the system. Skietra and her genetic engineers, who had already inserted a number of alien genes to form the early Homo Sapiens Supremis, now combined some of their own Galen traits into their creations. They also programmed a genetic computer called the Maternity Engine to mass produce the first generation of improved Homo Sapiens Supremis. (Note, some authors use the term Protos to seperate the early non-Galen Homo Sapiens Supremis from the race that exists on Velor today. The reality is that some Protos, offspring of the Valkyries, continue to live on Earth even today.) This first generation of true Supremis was taught to revere Skietra and the Galen, for they were the children of the Project itself, rather than the children of any individual abductees, who perished during he experiments. This has led to a strong bias among the Velorians in favor of those children who were the product of the Maternity Engine as opposed to natural conception, and led to the split in the Homo Sapiens Supremis race that led to a long running civil war.
As suggested above, there had been many earlier contacts between Galens and humans, dating back to prehistory, but earlier Harvests had been to terraform and populate distant worlds. The Galen often isolated on or more ethnic groups on these new worlds, often as not tweaking ("futzing") the settlers to allow them to survive adverse environmental conditions. By the time the Velorians were created, descendants of earlier Harvests were acting as surrogates for the Galen, carrying out Second Generation Harvests and spreading unenhanced humanity to still more worlds. All the while, another ancient race, the Elder, was also engaged in Harvests, and settling humans tweaked for psychic powers on yet other worlds. Like the Galen, they enhanced them in various ways, mostly by increasing the power of their minds. One client race was as highly engineered as the Supremis, and became known as the Diaboli. ___________________________________________________________
When Skietra and her science team inexplicably abandoned Velor in 1071AD, that new world and its early generations of Velorians were left confused and bewildered, casting about for a purpose. Feeling betrayed by the Galen, some of them formed the Naturalist movement, favoring natural reproduction, in opposition to Skietran Purists. This led to a serious division among the Velorians, the Naturalists opposing the Purists. Given that the original colony ship was long gone, the contending factions were trapped on the world they shared, seemingly with no hope of escape -- until Velor was discovered in 1130 by a Scalantran trading ship. Unwilling to land on the heavy gravity planet, even wearing anti-gravity suits, the Scalantrans dispatched a shuttle to bring a Velorian delegation up into orbit. While the Scalantrans weren't human themselves, they did trade with human worlds across the Galaxy and had taken humans into their employ; the crew of this particular ship included men from several human worlds. The Scalantrans could offer Velor the spacefaring technology and know-how it lacked, along with much else. But what could Velor offer in return? Previous orbital surveys suggested nothing. The Velorians had no hard technology or raw materials to trade with. That is, until the Velorian female came on board their ship and the Scalantrans noticed the reaction of the human males to her. The Velorian was very interested in the humans, given that her people had been isolated for so long, and per her culture, was very accommodating, open and gregarious. Not to mention beautiful beyond description and fantastically fit. The very air around them seemed filled with pheromones that distorted the human's judgment. The Scalantrans, despite being unaffected by human beauty or pheromones, sensed the extreme sexual power of these beings, and returned to the planet's surface to bargain for more women. They now had something they could sell. The Velorian Senate, sensing a signal opportunity, offered their youngest women in trade for hard technology. What the Scalantrans didn't realize was that the Senate was controlled by the Purist faction, and that only Purists had been represented in the delegation sent to treat with the trading ship. The Naturalists, enraged at the idea of selling their daughters -- into white slavery as they called it -- managed to get word of their displeasure to the Scalantrans. Unwilling to get involved in a local feud that might escalate into war, the Scalantrans sent the Purists women back down to the planet's surface and quickly left the Velorian system. That might have been the end of it, but for the providential discovery only a few years later of a Galen device on Velor called the Dimensional Transporter. None could understand its principles, but it allowed for instant transportation across many light years. Unfortunately, there was only one setting: a dark, overcast and wet world that also possessed a gold core. The Naturalists named the world Aria and began to remove their followers from Velor. Soon, tens of thousands of Naturalists had left Velor for this new and harsh frontier. Then, something went wrong with the DT, and it never functioned again, isolating the Naturalist Velorians on this strange and forbidding world. When the Scalantrans returned to Velor in 1158, they found only the Purists. They were again eager to cut a deal, as were the Scalantrans -- who left a voluminous technical library, and took back with them a small group of Velorian women as earnest.
The Scalantrans quickly sized up this new situation, and in an effort to buy favor with the now super-powered Velorians, they showered them with gold jewelry, serendipitously discovering as they did that an unbroken link of pure gold around a Velorian's body, waist or neck ideally, would dampen their energy flows and reduce their powers almost to human normal. Being the merchants that they were, the Scalantrans realized the unencumbered super-strength and invulnerability of the Vels would be a blessing in disguise when it came time to market them, for the rich and powerful soon realized that they could serve as bodyguards as well as concubines, servants and even wives. The Velorians, always politic, merely called themselves Companions. Interstellar travel was slow in those days before the Kelsorian Quantum Electric Drive, so it took two years to reach Andros, the nearest potential market. But the trip was worth it. The Scalantrans were able to earn a million credits from the sale of a single young woman, a girl of seventeen named Kalla Zaver'el. The other Companions fetched similar sums on the other worlds they visited. Realizing the potential of this flesh trade, an entire caravan of ships was dispatched to Velor. So began a trade that lasted for more than two centuries. In theory, the Velorian femmes weren't being sold, only indentured, although for 100-year terms. Only gradually did it become clear that the lifespan of an empowered Vel (living outside a gold field) was far longer than the already remarkable span of 150 years on Velor itself. The fact that the Vel femmes were still young-looking and vigorous when their 100-year indentures ran out was to cause complications in later centuries. Fifteen years after opening the Velorian trade, the Scalantrans approached the world now known as Aria with a similar caravan, foolishly believing they might begin a similar enterprise there. They found a population that was universally raven-haired in contrast to the blonde hair of the Velorians. Their contact with the isolated world of Aria was the biggest mistake they'd ever made, for the Arions captured their ships and slaughtered or enslaved the crewmen.
The Arions were a bitter people, and not without reason. When they left Velor in 1136, they took with them what they believed to be sufficient knowledge of genetic engineering to create a retrovirus that would alter their appearance to set them apart from the Purists. They attempted to expunge the genes for blonde hair from their race by releasing a mutagenic retrovirus in the atmosphere of Aria. What was later called the Gene Bomb malfunctioned, stripping most of the Arions of their Supremis powers, leaving only a small elite of powerful Primes (now flightless), and a vast underclass of Betans. There were suspicions that the Purists had deceived them, even that their agents had somehow sabotaged the retrovirus. This supposed treachery eventually became an article of faith among the Arions. The Arions licked their wounds, and began forging a Spartan culture on their homeworld and other worlds they settled in the immediate vicinity, using the captured Scalantran ships. When the Scalantrans retaliated against them in the infamous First Strike, they seized most of the attacking warships -- crude, but for a galaxy that had yet to learn interstellar war, effective. At first, they were content to carve a small domain within their own region of space, but as time went on they became obsessed with the idea that it was their manifest destiny to unite all the scattered human worlds that had been independent since their creation, however involuntary their colonization had been. To unite them under the banner of their new Empire. By this time, the Galen were rarely if ever seen, but their surrogates continued abducting Earthmen for Second Generation colonies like Nova Iberia. In later years, before Earth was put under covert Velorian protection, even the Arions became involved in Harvests that led to the settlement of a few worlds like Novo Recife.
The Velorians, meanwhile, pursued their trade in trophy women. A High Council for Off-World affairs was constituted to select and train Companions. They were chosen for their compliancy and sexual skills, and were then educated in every manner companionship with Frails, as humans were often called by the Supremis. Companions were instructed to wear gold abroad, and never to advertise their true powers. They were the Velorian equivalent of the Japanese Geisha. Many of the human societies on settled worlds at this time were based around large, powerful extended families (ŕ la Dune), and the export of Velorian Companions gradually became Velor's way of building relationships with those worlds. Velor had nothing but its genetics to trade in any case, and the longevity of the Companions lifespans proved to be a stabilizing influence -- for both the ruling families and their worlds' relations with Velor. To have a Vel in the family was the ultimate status symbol. Vels became family heirlooms, passed from father to son to grandson -- and not just as Companions, or even as bodyguards. With the wisdom of age and the vigor of youth, they became trusted advisors and even managers of family businesses. Sometimes, even wives. What made them especially useful was that they could fly off-planet on special missions, although they had not yet learned the secret of interstellar flight. By 1405, at least a thousand Vels were scattered around a few hundred worlds, a number of which had formal diplomatic relations with Velor. The galaxy could be said to be at peace at that time, other than local rebellions and coups on some worlds, although rarely on those with a Velorian presence. There were occasional small wars between planets in the same system, usually over resources or other economic causes. Velor had even established diplomatic relations with Aria itself, and it seemed that a golden age was dawning. Then the situation began to change rapidly when the original founders of Aria died and a new Emperor was installed. He coveted Velor, and began to build a military force, starting with converting the Scalantran transports into warships. There were border incidents, then deliberate acts of aggression -- the seeds of conflict were sown. Within fifty years the High Council (chartered to deal with the Companion Trade), found itself besieged with requests for more Companions -- not just as concubines or wives, but as protectors. The Arions did not think of themselves as wanton aggressors, but rather as benevolent dictators -- bringing unity and strength to scattered human worlds. They even thought of themselves as liberators of the Velorian Companions, who they saw as having been sold into slavery. To their surprise, the Arions found that the Companions had become very attached to their worlds, and they sided with ordinary humans against their distant Supremis cousins. Velorians turned defenders were the only hope those planets had against the Arions, who had the overwhelming advantage of massive strength and invulnerability to the weapons of that day, not to mention armed spacecraft and military forces with advanced weapons. On some worlds,the Vels from several families banded together to form a militia that was able to push the Arions back in battle. The Velorian Senate all the while maintained the legal fiction that it was at peace with the Arions, and even maintained its formal relations with Aria. Yet before the High Council knew it, it was focusing most of the Companion's training on combat. As often happens in war, lines were drawn, and dedicated warriors were created. Someone coined the term Protector to describe these new Companions, and modern-day Velor began to take shape. But it was only in 1505, when Aphro'dite arrived --claiming to have been sent by Skietra -- that the formal institution of Protectors was established. A stone building that had served as a shrine to Skietra was converted into the Hall of Protectors -- expanded 300 years later when a soaring tower and a public atrium were built over and next to it. It was Aphro'dite who brought Velor the secret of the null field, who instituted the Rites of enhancement and performed them on each new aspirant, and who designed the uniforms. It was also she who created the Messengers in the name of Skietra, and later the Scribes. Apart from the Protectors, there was no Velorian military to speak of -- only the local police force or proctors. Vels began exploiting their power of flight and learned how to fight in space and dive through wormholes (to transit vast interstellar distances). A tradition was thus established of Arions using starships and technology, and Vels their genetic gifts only. Little had changed at the time of "Questlngs" in 1600AD. But that state of affairs could not long continue. Escalation was inevitable. The arms races was genetic as well as technological: Destroyers, Tset'lar and Saray'en, not to mention Kintzi, as well as heavier ships and more powerful weapons -- weapons designed for use against Supremis. Training of Protectors became more rigorous, to enable them to deal with new weapons and tactics. Velor created a conventional military force to help guard the home system and train allied forces abroad. Allied worlds become part of what is called the Velorian Enlightenment, but Protectors were also assigned covertly to undisclosed worlds, including Earth. With such open involvement of Velor in the war, relations with the Empire were broken. As the war intensified, there were humans who tried to opt out by migrating to worlds beyond the Enlightenment and the Empire. Among these Third Generation worlds, the most prominent was Kelsor 7, which discovered and kept the secret of the Quantum Electric Drive and maintained its neutrality by making Enlightenment worlds, Scalantrans and the Empire alike dependent on it for QED modules. The war also affected non-human races; except for the Pactrellans, who as ammonia breathers had little intercourse with oxygen breathers. The Vendorians, long shipwrights to the Scalantrans and others, turned their talents to weapon-making -- with dreadful consequences to the galaxy and eventually to themselves. The Scalantrans, who by this time were trading with Aria, were co-opted by Velor, under a secret Compact by which they shared intelligence on the Arions and were to aid Protectors in dire emergencies (But beyond that, the Scalantrans were usually left free to pursue their usual agenda.).
By 2000AD, Kryp'terran interference (a race created by further interbreeding of Velorians with their Galen hosts) put at end to the genetic arms race, destroying Tset'lar and Sarayen and restoring the old balance between Prime and Protector. All of which takes us to modern times, with new developments such as the Kella'primes: an experiment on Aria that is out of control and Primes with anti-gravity implants. Peace movements and various scattered attempts arise by Betan and Kella'primes to change the Primal-led government on Aria. It remains to be written whether they escalate the war against the Enlightenment, or work to end it.
AppendicesOverview
1) Elders and Galen are two
competing races, one focusing on physical perfection, the other on mental
powers. They have been around for tens of millions of years, and have
traveled through many galaxies. They are few in number, they have no
planets which they call home (at this time), and live in shadowy pockets
and obscure corners of the universe. They have been at war with each other
for nearly ten thousands years, and their populations have plummeted.
2) The Elders created a
client race named the Diaboli and the Galen did the same with the
Supremis. Both client races are built on a human foundation, humans being
the most adaptive, versatile and easiest to genetically manipulate of all
native species. They also breed fast and have a clever and inventive
intelligence. The Diaboli and Supremis races were both created
approximately 4000 years ago. 3) The Elders and Galen inserted members of their Diaboli and Supremis into many Earth civilizations and they are largely responsible for the mythology and ancient theology of Earth. There is a reason why every civilization had its gods and why there were so many parallels and so many common conflicts... the Diaboli and Supremis were involved in a power struggle to shape the evolving civilizations of Earth, each in their own ways. Both master races had further designs in mind for the humans that would come out of these civilizations. The best known of the Supremis religions was the Nordic Asatru, while the Wiccan religion was founded by Diaboli. Beyond that, one has only to look at the legends of Celtic goddesses to find early examples of the Supremis. As has been written Peter Beresford Ellis is his book, Celtic Women, the war-goddess was a common theme among the collection of peoples often called Celts, the pre-Christian Irish, Gauls, Welsh and Bretons as well as the less well understood continental Celts. Two quotes from his book below tell us something about how the Supremis shaped those cultures, and continues as a thread that resonates among many readers today: "Women were highly honored, female symbolism formed the most sacred images in the religious cosmos, and the relationship with motherhood was the central elements of the social fabric... the society was held together by common allegiance to the customs of the tribe loosely organize around the traditions of the goddess." The goddess was described as having many aspects, a concept that modern day women struggle to comprehend. She was intelligent, brave, beautiful, chaste, passive, romantic, aggressive, crafty, sexual, wise and sensible. The concept of the pagan Celic goddess gave rise to the women of Arthurian legend and even to Christian saints. Heroines such as Gwenhywyfar (Guinevere of King Arthur legend) embodied elements of a triune goddess like Eire, Fotla and Banba. (Celtic goddesses usually appeared as a triad.) Yet as time progressed, the concept of a goddess as life giver, the mother to the greatest and strongest of men, changed, perhaps as a reflection of more violent times. Ellis further comments on the evolution of the warrior-goddess which has carried over into the current day Homo Sapiens Supremis: "Her twin appetites for sexual gratification and for bringing about violent death are a travesty of the very necessary and natural forces of creation and destruction that keep the universe functioning and imbalance which brings about disaster." I won't comment on the origin and development of more modern religions such as Christianity, Islam, Buddism, Hinduism, etc. and leave it to your imagination to decide whether their foundations were the same. I will only say that it became vitally important for the Christian church to expunge the concept of the pagan, sexual and warlike goddesses of the past and replace them with a strong patriarchy, often reducing the role of women to that of a lesser sex. One can still see elements of this deliberate cultural change in writing of authors like Brown in his Da Vinci Code and the story of Mary Magdalene.
Clearly the Galen and their continued
development of the Homo Sapiens Supremis continued the pre-Christian
pagan journey of women as the dominant sex.
4) Both master races decided
that their heavy interaction in Terran civilization was complete in the
4th century AD, and began a massive harvesting of this now mature species
called human. Hundreds of worlds were seeded from the 4th to 14th century,
with residents drawn from all of the civilizations they'd nurtured on
Earth. High diversity was a survival skill. The Diaboli and Supremis
'gods' from that period settled into some of the first worlds to
continue the development of the human civilizations, however most seeded
worlds had no such presence, especially after the 6th century. Few Diaboli or Supremis
were left on Earth after this period, although visitations are not
uncommon. 5) One experiment conducted by a young Galen during her years of training, Skietra, was called the Grand Experiment. It involved removing a number of humans from an isolated and genetically coherent population in northern Europe during the 11th century to create a specialized sub-race called Velorians. The goal was a homogeneous genome that they could extensively manipulate to include Galen DNA (which itself is a composite of the best traits of a dozen other species), and subsequently avoid mutation. They were to be procreators to help rebuild the population of Galen on a new planet they'd created called Gaeia.
This race split into two
groups, Arions and Velorians, and became by far the most populous and
powerful group of Supremis. Instead of being numbered in the thousands as
had been the case with early Supremis, they were now numbered in the
millions. They named themselves Homo Sapiens Supremis in honor of their
origin planet. Most of the history available to us today was written from
the Velorian perspective, so it is biased toward the Velorians as being
the origin of the Supremis race. You have to go back to earth Earth
mythology to get the full story. Arions violently deny this earlier
history, even as they reject the Velorian interpretation of more recent
events. Some Velorians, however, are open-minded enough to realize that
Earth's early mythology is their race's early history.
6) A further attack by the
Elders caused the Galen to retreat further into a corner of the universe,
and contact was lost with the humans and Velorians, along with the rest of
the seeded worlds. Each civilization developed on its own now, and we saw
the appearance of Protectors and the Arion Empire as have been discussed
many other places.
7) The Galen leaders,
leveraging off Skietra's work with the Velorians, created the more
powerful Geheim race, often called Kryp'terrans. Its DNA was half Velorian
and half Galen, with a sprinkling in of mutated Arion DNA. They became the
true procreators for repopulating the Galen race on Gaeia. That plan is
still under way, but there has been little written about it, and the
Velorians are largely ignorant of the plan. The Arions are more aware, and
are trying to establish relations with the reclusive Geheim (or Krypts as
they are sometimes called) for their own benefit. They have stolen bits
and pieces of Geheim DNA to create the Tset'lar and other experiments. The
Geheim work to crush such efforts when they discover them. They have also
been seen among humans from time to time, and are recognizable for their
far greater powers and shape-changing Galen abilities. Starla would become
a Geheim, for example.
8) The Diaboli
are still
around, although in far smaller numbers, and are masters at remaining
veiled yet powerful influencers of humans. Occasionally, Diaboli genetics
will surface, and in one case became mixed with Supremis genetics in the
form of a woman named Mandi Olson. She is immensely dangerous, and if she
were to mate with another hybrid like herself, her offspring could become
the origin of an entirely new race formed from the best of the ancients. A
second being of similar genetics, although with some pure Galen genetics
mixed in as well, is named Lucas (father of Xara). They have not met each
other at this time. 9) A number of truly aliens species that do not share any element of this history exist. Kecklavians, Scalantrans, Pactrel among them. SupremisThe Supremis are an artificial race of humans imbued with vast physical powers. They were in engineered from ancient humans by a people who called themselves, Galens - a widely-dispersed technologically-advanced alien race. Their motivations for conducting these experiments on humans are a subject of some controversy today, although most Velorian scholars believe the Supremis were created to bear the children of the god-like Galens – part of a last ditch effort to keep their dying race alive. Other beliefs were that the Supremis were to be 'Holy Warriors', destroying the non-believers and heathens. Neither of these theories are correct. As we all know, the normal evolution of a species occurs very slowly, taking the form of an accumulation of thousands of beneficial genetic mutations leading to progressive improvements in the ability of stronger members of the population to pass on their favorable genetic characteristics. This is called natural evolution, and it has been well documented on many worlds, including by Charles Darwin on the planet Earth. Natural evolution generally requires hundreds of thousands to millions of years to effect a significant change in a species. By contrast, the Supremis race appeared almost overnight. Yet if any date could be established for its first appearance on Earth, it would 3100BC as part of the Menes Dynasty of ancient Egypt.
The first recorded history of a Supremis on Earth was Queen Neithotepe of Eqypt, who arose during the battles with the Nubians of the south. She and her daughters used their knowledge and physical strength and flight abilities to build many of the ancient structures (pyramids) of ancient Eqypt.
Also, as you can see, the universally blonde appearance that many people
associate with the Supremis was introduced into the race nearly 40
centuries later (Velorians), although fair-haired Supremis were
occasionally seen long before the Velorians.
From the start, the Supremis and Diaboli were the most attractive females on Earth, and as expected, they married kings and became queens of their lands. Theus and her daughters influenced the minds of Nubian leaders for generations, as did Neithotepe of the Eqyptians.
The Galen created the Supremis by inserting genes for tremendous strength and resistance to injury into human hosts, increasing the number of muscle fibers by a hundred times, while shrinking the cross-section of each fiber by an equal amount, even as each fiber became ten times stronger. The result was that Supremis still looked like humans, yet possessed physical strength that was a thousand times greater than any normal human. To harness such strength, the atomic binding structure of the molecules of every cell in their bodies was enhanced to give them a near complete resistance to injury. Their eyes were further enhanced to allow them to image Tachyon and Neutrino particles. As we know today, those particles are so small as to be able to pass through ordinary matter, much like light through a glass window, the only effect of that passage being a change in the spin and resonance of the particles, something that a Galen’s retina could resolve. The result was the Supremis ability to selectively see through otherwise solid matter.
Their eyes were further modified to enable them to project a portion of that stored energy from their optic nerves and retina at various frequencies, creating a fearsome weapon for self-defense. And then lastly, the Galen's crowning achievement was to infuse the otherwise unique Galen genes for levitation, a volatai organ, giving this new species the power of flight.
Galen and EldersIt is widely believed in most parts of the galaxy that there are two supreme spacefaring races which have entered the Milky Way Galaxy: the Galen and the Elders. Together, these races are responsible for enhancing indigenous life forms, like the great apes of Earth, to elevate them into truly sentient, intelligent beings. Yet despite having the same goals, the Elder and the Galen employ very different methods.
The Elders focused on improving the powers of the mind through scientific methods, and their science became so advanced that its practitioners often explained it to others as mere 'magic'. The so-called witches and sorcerers of the occult, many who are agents and offspring of Elder blood called Diaboli, have at times been very powerful forces on Earth, and have been living continuously on the Earth for thousands of years. In contrast, the Galen focused on improving the physical robustness and emotional stability of the human race, initially for some very personal reasons, but more lately to allow humanity to spread to more hostile environments. They combined the human genome with specialized genetic elements from alien races to create a race that could conquer the immense gravity of the G-class planets that the Galen preferred. The impetus for creating the Supremis race started more than four thousand years ago, following a vicious attack on the Galen by the Elders. In that attack, a pathogen was released that slowly destroyed the reproductive capabilities of their females. Desperate to regain their lost fertility, they fell prey to an Elder plot that resulted in most of the Galen females entering a wormhole that led to a planet where they believed they would regain their ability to bear young. It was a trap they could not escape, for the actual terminus of their wormhole was a white dwarf star, a trap that not even the mighty Galen could escape. An ancient tome from Earth's history, circa the Greek Civilization, found in the Library of Scribes on Daxxan, says the following: “To an ordinary human, the Galen would appear to be gods, their powers and technology nearly beyond comprehension. They are, in fact, rumored to be the very race of beings who encouraged the apes of the planet Terra to stand erect and march toward their destiny of becoming sentient and intelligent men. They also fought an ages old war with the Elders, a race who has also worked to exert their influence over mankind since the beginning. The tug and pull of good and evil, and the way they formed the twin natures of mankind, are the result of this conflict between Galen and Elder.” Beyond this point, the story of the Galen is as much folklore as fact, and what follows is drawn from the Velorian records, which may not be entirely correct. After the Galen deserted them, the Velorians, invented many stories about their progenitors, but this one seems the most credible: <Excerpt from the Velorian Archives:> Despite the death of the females of their race, the Galen did not give up. Their first act was to enhance a selected group of humans to create beings who whose powers rivaled their own and whose very presence and beauty would inspire them to acts of great manliness. They populated them on a golden planet named Velor, and in so doing, gave rise to a race of people who were called Velorians. Given that the Galen were gods in most all of the ways that we understand godhood, the physical requirements of this new race of procreators was that of combining beauty with power. Mostly the power to withstand the loving attentions of a god, and bear their offspring. The prototypes for such advanced humans were created four to five thousand years ago. During this period, the Galen experimented by creating a number of genetically advanced humans and releasing them on Earth to see how they would prosper. They exhibited various powers such as invulnerability, extreme strength, and even unassisted flight. A murky but persistent memory of some of these encounters with prototypical Supremis persists among various human groups. Some of the Supremis were famous heroes, and others were themselves worshiped as gods. It is believed that beings such as Gilgamesh, Aphrodite, Hercules, Thor, Vainamoinen, Hiawatha, and other such deities and demigods were born of Supremis bloodlines. The gods of Olympia and Valhalla, Zeus, Athena, Aphrodite, Odin and many others lived in the various heavens that the Galen created, heavens which are now regarded as mere mythology on Earth but which in fact were located on the other planets of the Milky Way system. The tome in the Library of Scribes continues in another section: Despite their heavy influence in Earth's ancient history, we know little about the Galen today. A glimpse at their history, however, seems to indicate some of their goals. We know that they favor a highly organized and efficient, though somewhat regimented society, at least for humans. They do not shrink from battle or war, believing this to be the best way to put their progeny and their culture to the test. Finally, they believe in enhancing physical attributes most useful for the kind of life they favor, and for that reason sought to move humans towards a goal of superior strength and stamina, which often as not was reflected in extreme sexuality. This hypothesis has naturally led researchers to study the foes of the Galen: the Elders. We have reason to believe that the Elders also intervened in human history at many times, and a client race created by them (much as the Supremis were by the Galen) became known as the Diaboli. To those who have met the Elders and survived, they speak of them as if they were spirits and demons. It is believed that their physical appearance is profoundly ugly, even perverse. The conflict between Elder and Galen was fought over a hundred centuries. During the last forty centuries, the Galen focused their work on furthering their client humans through the enhancement of physical abilities. At the same time, the Elders and their Diaboli clients worked to sow the seeds of individualism and social chaos through enhancement of mental powers such as psychic abilities.
The presence of alien elements in human societies seems to be easily detected and cyclical, given their fondness for battle, desire for leadership, and concern with secretly shaping the cultures they encountered. The presence of the Diaboli has always proven difficult to detect, since by nature these people are secretive and individualistic, and their abilities are less dramatic (but no less powerful) than those of the Supremis. In fact, there is reason to believe that these beings have maintained a small but relatively constant presence throughout human history, and their descendents still influence Earth's history today. After the end of the first period of interaction between early Supremis, Diaboli and Terran, a period around the peak of the Roman Empire (c. AD 115), both the Galen and Elder decided to remove groups of their followers from the ordinary human population. The last remnants of these enhanced humans seems to have faded from the human record around 1300AD, with only sporadic reports of superhuman beings existing until the present. During this time, the Galen perfected their experiments on the human genome and began the grand experiment to create procreators to replace their lost wives.
The Galen scientists created their client race by using advanced genetic engineering techniques. When they finished, they inserted a 'control' into their genes that allow the presence of gold to nullify much of their physical power. The result was that they located the colony on a planet whose core was laden with pure gold (unlike Earth, where gold is usually found combined with silver in electrum, a natural alloy). The Galens then withdrew from their new planet and contented themselves to allow their new race to develop as they saw fit, other than leaving behind a large genetic computer called the Maternity Engine who's goal was to maintain the purity of their new creation.
Velorians
Velor itself is a beautiful world, with a sky that ranges from blue to lavender as the sun rises and falls, and an orange moon which reflects the rays of its cooler sun. It circles closely around a reddish-yellow star, and is slightly smaller than Earth (6,000 versus 8,000 mile diameter), with 4,000 miles of that core made of pure gold. Its gravity is nearly six times that of Earth due to its huge golden core. The Velorian star is isolated and alone, far away from any other potentially habitable system, and well outside the usual pathways that advanced races use for navigational purposes. Its twin planet, Daxxan, a planet with a much smaller gold core, can be seen as a pale yellow orb in the night. The style of its private dwellings and public towers is mostly art deco with a touch of expressionism. Velorian architects do not treat buildings as purely functional, but also as exciting sculptures in their own right. Everywhere one looks, they can see bright colors and warm pastels, from the clothes people are wearing to the blinking lights, which dot their rounded vehicles.
The more rustic and isolated villages of Velor are located among towering
mountains and inside rugged fiords, an a desire to find solitude in nature
is a remnant of the Scanian heritage of Velorians. The Velorians created several myths as to their existence. The most common was that they’d been created to be the consorts of the Galen, the ‘vessels of new gods’, a myth that explained the physical dominance of females. They also became increasing confused and divided, eventually splitting into two groups: the ‘natural procreation’ group and the ‘genetic purists’. The first group, the Naturalists, argued that they should freely intermarry and share their genetic traits with each other the way humans had always done.
The debate between the Naturalists and the Purists grew more heated with the passing decades until a leader finally arose to lead a rebellion. A bloody period in Velorian history ensued, with the resolution coming only after the Naturals agreed to leave the planet via a Dimensional Transport that Skietra had left behind. This machine allowed for the instantaneous transport of objects across time and space, while never letting the Supremis know how powerful they would become if they escaped the gold field of their planet. The machine initially had only one setting, and that was the second gold-cored planet, a location Skietra had once planned to expand her efforts to. The Naturalists soon arrived by the hundreds of thousands on a reddish, inhospitable planet they named Aria and began to conquer their new wilderness. The rebellious and arrogant leaders of the movement continued their ideology, and in so doing, they let it run away with them. Desiring to further differentiate themselves from the people of their home planet, they began to call themselves Arions. Further, they developed a dangerous genetic virus and unleashed it on themselves, the goal being to expunge the genes for blonde hair and replace it with the opposite – raven black. Never again would an Arion be confused with a Velorian. Unfortunately, the virus mutated and caused serious side-effects. Approximately 10-15% of Arions grew stronger and more aggressive, but the remaining members of the population became less aggressive and weaker, their physiques now little more powerful than the Terrans they’d long ago descended from.
The initial procreation process on Velor consists of married couples selecting their children's characteristics from a list of genetic choices that are available depending on the time of year the child is conceived. The needs of society and the skills and backgrounds of the parents are then considered and the system selects the remaining attributes, including the child's aptitudes and personality. Generally, ova and sperm from the parents is used to begin the process, the genetics then edited before conception, although some couples prefer to draw the raw genetic material from other donors. It is rare for a P1 child to be conceived using the parents ova and sperm. The child, born after a very long 11 month gestation period, is then taken home by the parents approximately two days after birth and raised much as a Terran child would be raised. Despite the seemingly rigid nature of the system, in actual practice the children are free to choose whatever role in society they wish. The exception being those with P-level genetics who undergo training from a young age to prepare them for their lives as Protectors, Scribes or Messengers on distant worlds.
Three levels of genetic classes exist on Velor.
The second major class is Matra (M-class), and it consists of those who will become the professionals of Velor. Engineers, artists, architects and others, who have been selected for creativity and high intelligence. The last level Brava (B-class) is for bureaucrats, government leaders and ordinary workers. They are the people with superior organizational skills and an aptitude for managing other people. The highest achievers among this group generally enter the vast governmental bureaucracy of Velor, with the lower achievers making up the working classes of Velor. While the genetic potential of each class is sharply defined, the members of each class socialize among each other, and it is considered unsociable to show either overt favoritism or discrimination toward those of other genetic classes. The exception are P1’s (destined to be Protectors), who are outgoing and gregarious to a fault, but who are always treated with deference and respect by those of other classes, and are often unappreciative of the more ordinary Bravas. They are the ones who will give their lives to the defense of ordinary humanity across the entire breadth and width of the five galaxies, and they are respected in the way that wise people have always respected the warriors among them. Respect that is tinged with a bit of envy and a little fear. It is also the role of the other classes to nurture young Protectors, to teach them what it is like to be ordinary, to live a life dependent on others. To be gentle and tolerant and kind. The greatest fear of the Velorian government is that a Protector will become arrogant and willful and will see herself as being different and better than others.
Protectors
Protector genes are selected for quiet (but not deep) intelligence, versatility and resourcefulness, strength, endurance and profound resistance to injury, even from violent attacks as shown above. Their superior genetics affords them nearly total invulnerability to all known physical hazards when off their homeworlds. They are also chosen for bravery and a willingness to engage in lethal combat, the later trait having been bred out of anyone not possessing P-class genetics. For reference purposes, a Protector’s strength can be as great as four or even five thousand times that of a very fit Terran male. A Scribe or Messenger (P2 genetics) would have from one-fourth to one-half the strength of a Protector, but even an ordinary Velorian of class M or B who leaves their home planets would still have hundreds of times the strength of an ordinary human of comparable physical build. The remarkable strength of all Velorians can be temporarily amplified further during moments of extreme physical arousal. The function of the Velorian thyroid gland differs from ordinary humans in that it secretes a modified hormone that allows metabolism of a stored energy called Orgone. Orgone is the ultimate 'fuel' that unlocks the strength of a Velorian's body. This hormone, of course, is the gift that the Galen left behind in the Velorian genetic structure due to their initial goal of having the females be their procreators, and the result is that extreme physical violence and sexual arousal both create an adrenal rush are intertwined in ways that cannot be separated. In other words, their response to danger, the so-called fight or flight response, and their response to sexual arousal are essentially the same. The difference in a Protector's base strength as compared to others with P-class genetics is due to the fact that they have undergone a mutagenic enhancement during their first Ples'tathy period. More will be said later about both these concepts, yet it should be said that this aspect of Velorian physiology has been generally kept from the knowledge of ordinary humans. Only females can become Protectors because it is possible to imbue them with greater energy storage than males. Given the prodigious appetite that their super-human physiques have for energy to power their muscles, what was formally the female mammary gland has been modified to serve primarily as an energy storage organ instead of a lactating organ. Other fatty tissues also store the energy they use, called Orgone. This allows well-endowed females to store hundreds of times as much energy as a male and permits them to make unaided interstellar flights. By contrast, a male Messenger, a man who has much of the same enhanced genetics of a Protector, requires the energy stores of a Starship, frequent dips into the plasma of passing suns, or a female Velorian companion, for such a flight. Protectors typically leave the Velorian system at the age of 17 or 18 (full physical maturity equivalent to a Terran female of 21 or 22 years is reached at this age), and sometimes as early as 16 years when the demand for Protectors is high. They are invariably assigned to protect one or more developing planets and those assignments take them across the breadth of the Milky Way galaxy. Curiously, once a Protector leaves Velor, she is generally barred from returning, her only contact with home being the occasional visit by a member of a special cadre of Messengers and Scribes. Exceptions are difficult to secure, although the Council does allow for petitions from retiring Protectors to return to Velor to train future generations.
Clothing and Appearance
Messengers and ScribesThe Messengers are male Velorians of unusual power, their near-Protector-level powers coming from their P2 genetics. They are sent out to convey news and provide special comfort to the far-flung female Protectors. They are few in number and they travel constantly, often for their own peace of mind, as most homeworld Velorians treat them contemptuously, often accusing them of being gigolo's, somewhat more humorously as 'mailmen standing at stud'. However, most Messengers enjoy their work a great deal and their arrival on a Protector's world is always eagerly awaited by the young women they visit.
The other group of expat Velorians are the Scribes. Invariably female, their physical abilities are far less than that of a Protector, but generally greater than a Messenger. They are sent to worlds where pivotal battles are being fought between the Protectors and the Arion or Kintzi races. Forbidden under punishment of death to intervene in the affairs of the Protector who's actions they are recording, their job is solely to record and report, their ultimate goal being that of maintaining the central archives on Velor. Unlike Protectors, Messengers and Scribes are allowed to return to the Velorian system, although they generally aren't allowed to re-enter normal society and live on Daxxan, Velor’s sister planet. The Institute of Scribes and the Velorian Archive is on Daxxan as well. Because of this restriction, an open rebellion in recent years among Scribes has led to many of them refusing to return to the Velorian home system once their assignments are complete. Many of them have become roving journalists, moving from one world to another. A few of them are now behaving almost like Protectors, fighting side-by-side with them. Unfortunately, due to their limited powers and an inbred distaste for physical confrontation, they are fairly easy prey for Arion and Kintzi warriors. Some ordinary Velorians -- diplomats, military advisors, technical experts and the like -- are also allowed to travel abroad, but are always kept tranked during transit, and are generally discouraged from showing -- still less exploiting -- their powers on the worlds where they are assigned.
IsolationOverall, Protectors live their lives totally isolated from their homeworld, their infrequent contacts with their own race occurring at intervals that are sometimes decades apart. Given their long natural life-span, ranging from 500 to as much as 800 Earth years depending on their initial genetic mix, they often stray from the paths that have been proscribed for their kind. It is the role of the Scribes and Messengers to help keep them oriented to their Prime Directive. It is also a sad fact that few Protectors actually survive their first century. The battle between the warring elements of the Supremis race, Arion and Velorian, is such that many deaths occur in combat. Unfortunately, their isolation and the constant threat of death, along with the extreme physical requirements for an appropriate mate, that has led some Protectors to commit the abhorrent act (in the eyes of a homeworld Velorian) of becoming pregnant and giving birth naturally. This is generally done by seducing one of the Messengers into performing the Dala'Hallil, the act of inducing the state of Ples'tathy in a Protector while she is ovulating. Due to their robust physiques and the near-epileptic spasms of a Supremis orgasm, and the fact that those with P-class genetics become much stronger during sexual excitement, a Velorian female can only be impregnated by the equally energetic sperm of a male Homo Supremis. Yet only by proxy if a Messenger is involved, as they are universally sterile, thus leading to many complications and logistical issues. Arion men have no such limitations.
Prime DirectiveAs opposed to being genetically compelled to follow her instructions like all other Galen client races, she left the Velorians with but a single directive, the so-called Prime Directive.
Thus the Protectors are forbidden from interfering in the development of their assigned planets in any way other than to protect their planet from any kind of outside alien interference. As a result, they usually hide themselves among the populace of human worlds, often taking on an ordinary identity and life, only to appear clad in their characteristic red and blue flight uniform when extraterrestrial threats appear. This results in the local populace developing conflicting views of their value to their planet. Refusing to take sides in wars, or even to assist in natural disasters, despite their ability to save countless lives, has led to the rise of various organizations who oppose their presence on a protected planet. The EarthFirst movement on Earth, first appearing at the end of the 20th century, has grown tobe one of the most powerful of such movements.
Gender and SexualityDespite the longstanding taboo against natural reproduction, the ability to reproduce naturally has, perhaps wisely, never been genetically engineered out of the Velorian race. Females remain perfectly fertile, and have the potential to undergo a monthly menstrual cycle, while Messengers are invariably sterile. Females do not, however, actually ovulate unless they consciously wish to do so, and the usual result of their monthly cycle is usually just a weakening of their physical strength that lasts for several days out of each month. During this time, they have less than half of their normal strength, although their response to sexual arousal during this period is far more extreme than normal, leading to the retention of most of their combat skills. They are extremely responsive sexually during their periods. Velorians are in general libidinous beings, as you might expect of someone as physically fit as they are. Because of the lack of reproductive consequences, (and the fact that parents and siblings have slightly different genes due to the editing process or genetic origin), Velorians don’t view incest as taboo, although it is generally discouraged when there is a large disparity in age. Exclusively homosexual relationships are even more discouraged than incest, particularly among women, primarily as that type of union is believed by the male leadership of Velor to increase the power of women. The Velorian authorities fear it will encourage them to bond together as sisters and become politically powerful. While this is clearly just another ill-conceived male reaction to the physical superiority of the female Protectors, it has nonetheless become a significant taboo on Velor and Daxxan. Off-planet, however, lesbianism is extremely common, although both members of a femme couple will generally embrace the arrival of a Messenger with equal enthusiasm. Bisexuality, therefore, is wide-spread on Velor and is rapidly becoming the norm everywhere. A Velorian female periodically undergoes a period state of elevated arousal called Ples'tathy. During this state, which can often last for days, they are unusually receptive to males but are also uniquely demanding of their partner's strength and enthusiasm. The result of such a mating is always fatal to anyone with less than Velorian or Arion Prime genetics (see Arions below). Only a Prime, a Messenger or another Protector or Scribe can truly rise to meet a Protector's physical demands during this period. Scribes, particularly when off the homeworlds, are susceptible to even more frequent bouts of Ples'tathy, mainly because many of them do not engage in the periodic release of tensions like a more assertive Protector can.
Interestingly, Protectors are nearly always sexually excited by violence. Even in normal humans, a woman’s sexual arousal can only be differentiated from anger by four bodily functions, but in the case of Supremis women, it seems the two states are biologically indistinguishable. While this can lead to an increase in a Protector's physical power during combat, it can also be a fatal distraction, one that their enemies have long exploited during the heat of battle.
Appearance
Velorian males are rarely less than six feet tall while females average 5'11" and never less than 5'6". Some females, mostly Protectors, are as tall as 6'3". Any Velorian would be considered extraordinarily attractive on a human world as well as wildly athletic,and they all appear very similar - at least to non-Velorian eyes. Their unique ability to blend in with members from the modern-day Nordic races, particularly the Swedes, encourages them to live in places were their type of physical appearance is common. Los Angeles, Stockholm, Amsterdam and western Finland are the most likely locations to find a Velorian Expat living on Earth. Most visit the Earth only for brief periods, as it is only the designated Planetary Protectors who are allowed permanent settlement by the Velorian Council.
Government and Social Conventions Despite the superior physical prowess of females, Velorian society is patriarchal, with the males controlling all positions of authority in government and business. Until the Revolution of 2033, the Senate that governs planetary affairs, diplomatic relations and conventional military forces were barred to women and chosen from among the patriarchs of the leading families. The High Council, which governed Protectors, Messengers and Scribes, was also entirely male. Behavior that has long been considered sexual abuse on Earth is commonplace in Velorian business and government. It is this aspect of Velorian society, more than any other, that has the potential to cause its own downfall, particularly as women band together to increase their power base. This, of course, does not apply to Protectors or Scribes as they are more powerful than males and are afforded a corresponding special status in Velorian society. Unfortunately, their genetically-programmed nature encourages Protectors to be exhibitionists at heart. In fact, because there are no taboos against nudity on their homeworld, a naked Velorian visiting Earth, whether Scribe or Protector, might be just as irritated if asked to clothe themselves as an American woman visiting a Muslim nation would be by the requirement to keep her hair covered. At best she’d think it was a demeaning custom, and at worst she might be insulted by the unspoken suggestion that her body was unpleasant to look at. Protectors do not consider any part of their bodies to be private unless they have covered it. Therefore, a naked Protector would not be any more offended by someone touching her breast as she would if a hand were touching her elbow. In fact, the momentary pressing of bared breast to breast is an accepted way for two female Protectors to greet each other, as they acknowledge the special nature and role of those organs in their lives. Men are usually greeted with a handshake if they are strangers, a hug if they are friends, and a kiss if they are more than friends. A Protector would only allow a man to touch her breast if she intended to mate with him. During athletics and exercise, most Velorian females wear outfits that free their breasts to either heat or cool, or expand or contract, depending upon how much energy they are consuming. In the end, this in-bred conflict between exhibitionism and a desire to be respected as first-class citizens has become a source of friction between men and women on Velor.
Powers
The expansion of their
muscles from resting to fully flexed states can transform their invariably
slender physiques into those that would be the envy of any Terran
bodybuilder.
In all cases, a Velorian's body is at the upper end of normal in terms of muscle tone when they are relaxed, but their flexed muscles become very large and far harder than steel or any other manmade substance, the specific hardness rivaling that of diamond. Yet despite their invulnerability and extreme muscular hardness when exerting themselves, a Velorian Protector's skin remains very soft and flexible, their skin tone and texture much like that of a very fit Terran girl in her mid-teens. While the specific hardness of their bones and flexed muscles is indeed diamond-like, their flesh does not have a crystalline structure and therefore cannot be broken by an impact, no matter how strong. In addition, their overwhelming strength and gymnast-level flexibility allows them to move with a gracefulness that startles most Terrans, giving their movements a lithe and sinuous appearance even if they are not using any of their super powers. When they are not exerting themselves strongly, in this case lifting only a few tons, their bodies are compact and uniquely attractive. Slenderness is the rule. A little understood fact is that asking a Velorian to wear undergarments is an insult. It implies she's unattractive. Given the insubstantial nature of their normal outerwear, the concept of 'exposure' on Velor is quite different than Earth.
Another unique Velorian power is the ability to fly. Velorians have Volatai located just beneath their breasts, in the chest cavity, that can channel excess energy from isometric muscular contraction into a 'push' that is exerted across dimensional boundaries. The usual method of flight is to leap very energetically from the ground (a Velorian is capable of leaping two miles into the air with their leg strength alone, followed by a tensing of their strongest muscles, usually the gluteus maximus and quadraflexors. The result is that they can achieve speeds of up to Mach 6 in the dense atmospheres of humanoid planets. The Galen, most Geheimites and some Velorian females, have a pair of Volatai. One is generally dominant with the other volatai a spare (like having two kidneys). In rare cases, they can both be dominant, and in even rarer cases, they can be reversed in orientation in their chests, allowing them to 'thrust' in multiple directions at the same time. With the ability to generate roughly half the flight power of the maximum weight they can lift with their muscles, a Velorian can accelerate to the following velocities as shown in the table below. However, for reasons of energy conversion (Orgoine metabolism), Velorians cannot maintain any acceleration greater than 10G's for more than a few minutes. The result is that a Velorian can virtually 'disappear before your very eyes' by accelerating away. But since it takes a week to reach the closest wormhole, any transits, out and back to anyplace outside the Sol system, are multi-week affairs. But they can get almost anywhere in the Sol system in two days. In addition, Velorians possess a penetrating vision which allows them to see great distances clearly and to see through solid objects. The technique for seeing through objects is takes advantage of Tachyon and neutrino particles that make up an invisible background radiation throughout the universe. The detectors in their retina’s are capable of stopping and decoding the complex resonance of a Tachyon particle, a resonance that carries with it a ‘memory’ of the materials it has passed through immediately prior to entering the eye. Via this method, they can effectively look through about a mile of rock.
Velorian hearing is also somewhat enhanced, enabling them to hear sounds at a great distance and to distinguish specific sound sources from any background noise. Their hearing is perhaps twice as good as that of a Terran canine.
Velorians also possess slightly greater mental acuity than humans, their average IQ being 140, their mental abilities tuned toward quick learning and adaptiveness, the characteristics of a warrior. They tend to have photographic memories.
Other Powers, Abilities and Effects: Enhancement: Limited portions of a Protector's genetic superiority can be transmitted physiologically to other humanoid races via hormonal excretions that can be released during intimate contact. The hormones have a mutagenic effect which is driven by a retro-virus that enters the cells of those infected and modifies the DNA. These changes can begin the moment a person is exposed to a significant quantity of hormones. The change in DNA makes the recipient capable of harnessing Orgone energy, gradually causing permanent changes in the genetic structure of the person who ingests them. The actual extent of the powers gained is determined not only by the amount of hormonal exposure during the "incubation period", but also an unknown factor in the genetic structure of the individual exposed. Generally speaking: the greater the exposure, the greater the level of power obtained, but some of those exposed will undergo very small changes, and others will have wide disparities in their powers (i.e. great invulnerability, but only limited enhanced strength). Occasionally, the retro-virus can cause death, so infecting a human with such a virus is anything but a casual undertaking.
Based on their stunningly attractive looks and their open and frank sexuality, not to mention the strength-enhancing aspects of contact with their bodily fluids, Velorians are highly sought-after as sexual partners by most humans, both male and female. Unfortunately, without prior enhancement, a Terran would be lucky to survive the athletic lovemaking of a Supremis. A Velorian orgasm is as wildly energetic and uncontrolled an event as it is for a human, and with their fantastic strength, resistance to injury and energy, it goes without saying that a lesser partner could be badly injured. Fortunately, between the weakening and intoxicating effects of gold, or the Supremis’ ability to enhance a long-term partner, Velorians have been able to find a way to enjoy intimacy with humans. In terms of enhancement, greater strength and invulnerability are nearly always transferred, but the powers of flight, vision and hearing are rarely passed down (and not always all three). The exact powers gained are determined by unknown genetic factors possessed by the exposed individual. It is believed by some Velorian scientists that rogue Supremis genes have been propagated through Terran individuals they call "Latents." These Latents are generally more muscular and attractive than other humans, but their main advantage is that they react very dramatically to even small quantities of mutagenic hormones. When aroused, female Velorians also emit powerful pheromones (said to resemble the scent of wild flowers and honey) that can greatly increase the arousal of other beings, including normal humans. Unlike most pheromones, which only attract the opposite sex, both sexes are affected. The actual effect of the pheromones varies widely from individual to individual, ranging from having virtually no effect, to driving the recipient completely out of control with lust. This does get complicated, however, as sexual combat is the norm between combating Primes and Velorians, and the increase in strength that comes during the moment of orgasm tends to make such combat extremely destructive of surrounding structures or humans who are too close to the action.
A female can also transfer this energy to other members of her own race, and during the rare times a pair of male and female Velorians travel together, her body is used as an energy store during protracted space flight or combat. The transfer of energy between male and female is always an intimate act involving a great deal of wetted skin exposure, with intercourse being the most effective coupling form an efficiency perspective. This act is often called 'recharging'. Their power of flight makes the Velorians and their splinter race, the Geheimites who live on the hidden third planet named Kryp'Terra, unique in the galaxy. A male’s single flight organ, a "volatus", is located in the center of his chest cavity. It is relatively small and is further diminished by the limited energy reserves that males have. Geheimite females have redundant volatai, one beneath the ribs on either side of their chests, where it has optimal access to the vast energy reserves that females can store. A well-endowed female can store enough energy for prolonged spaceflight.
Vulnerabilities: Drugs/Poisons -- Vulnerable to a few gold-based drugs that can neutralize aspects of Velorian physiology needed for powers. Gold has a serious weakening and intoxicating effect on them, particularly if an unbroken link is placed around their necks or limbs. The gold interferes with the thyroid gland in the neck and that in turn confuses all the other hormones in their body, causing interruptions in the flow of Orgone energy.
If gold is worn for a prolonged period, the intoxicating effects will eventually fade, but the weakness will remain until the gold is removed. The rapid removal of the gold causes a dramatic energy discharge, usually from the female's breasts, as Orgone energy spreads back through their bodies to energize them. Such energy surges can be very dangerous to those in close proximity to them. Disease/Infection -- Immune to all known natural illness.
Food -- The only purpose that food serves for a Velorian is to act as a source of raw materials to replaced the dying cells that are part of any human's body. Since their energy isn't drawn from food and their long-lived nature slows the rate of cellular death and replacement, they can go for several months without eating if necessary. Social eating is common among Velorians, however. Respiration -- Respiration, like food, can be suspended for several month intervals, although it can lead to a build up of toxins in the blood that would make a Velorian feel as if they had the flu. Water -- The loss of body weight due to water loss is a more serious problem. While the invulnerability of a Velorian greatly reduces moisture loss due to heat or exposure to vacuum, significant dehydration can occur when subjected to very high temperatures or extended space travel while exposed to vacuum. A Velorian will enter a coma-like state if they lose more than fifty percent of their bodily water.
Temperatures above 20,000C are generally fatal if exposure is prolonged. Extremely brief exposure to temperatures in the million degree Centrigrade range can be tolerated. A Velorian is capable of surviving inside the fireball of a nuclear burst, mainly due to the very brief exposure. Extreme Cold -- Slowed slightly at -50 C and below. Increased vulnerability to physical attack at temperatures approaching absolute zero, yet they are able to survive extended exposure to temperatures only a few degrees above absolute zero, at least until their stored energy reserves are depleted. Orgone Energy -- Because Velorians act as natural Orgone accumulators, they are extremely vulnerable to overdoses - especially the females whose bodies store energy. Velorians of either sex can be totally incapacitated by the extreme sexual excitement/pleasure, with the effect of the energy directly proportional to the strength and vitality of the person who absorbs it. Otherwise, excess orgone energy can be stored like any form of energy and discharged, but usually with extremely strong, often uncontrollable, accompanying physical sensations. 'Magic' -- In reality, the scientific tools of the Diaboli. Because of the purely physical nature of a Velorian's powers, they are vulnerable to Diaboli science and have reduced resistance against physical attacks that are 'magical' in origin. Psionic/Mental Attack -- As with so-called magic, their purely physical powers leave them with only limited capacity to defend against mental attacks. Possession/Mental Domination -- Perhaps one their greatest weaknesses, next to gold, is that Velorians have proven to be extremely vulnerable to possession of their bodies by other minds; and to the manipulation of their thought processes by brainwashing techniques or mind control devices. The only good things to come out of this weakness include the Drill Helmets which Velorians sometimes use for implanting skills and knowledge, and the Mind Probe, which may be used for therapeutic purposes by psychologists. Fertility Cycle -- Female Velorians are weakened significantly (50% or more), and can experience significant hormone-induced behavioral changes during their monthly cycle. This period can last for several days. Can be Captured/Subdued By -- Excerpt from a journal maintained by a member of a Velorian research team: The most effective technique is to coat their body with enough gold to cause various endocrinal disturbances. Remember that Vels started off as human, so their endocrine system is still analagous to ours. It's ductless and it uses hormones to carry messages to the rest of the cells of the body, using the circulatory system as its transport. Gold affects the hypothalamus which in a Velorian, like a human, provides control over the pituitary gland, effectively the master gland as it can control the thyroid, parathyroids, adrenal and pineal glands. To some degree, gold also affects the thyroid directly as well. The pituitary in turn controls endorphins and the ovaries/testes very directly. , The thyroid manages many of the chemical reactions in the body. In the case of Vels, it controls orgone metabolism which is their source of extraordinary energy. (Superstrength, flight, head vision all require vast amounts of energy that is more on the nuclear than the biological scale). What gold does is to essentially shut down orgone metabolism, which robs a Vel of most of their strength. So no flight, heat vision or anything else. But its all a matter of degree. To shut it down completely, you either need a lot of gold or you need a choker or tight-fitting necklace of very pure gold to surround the neck, covering the thyroid's location just below the larynx. Now that doesn't make them complete weaklings... their denser muscles will still have several times human strength, but we're talking about bringing a Vel down to approximately the strength of the strongest female bodybuilders. Which means she is still stronger than all but strongest men, and could bench a couple of hundred pounds or so. That's just the strength part. It also floods their body with endorphins (which make you feel so damn good after exercise or sex) and directly stimulates the ovaries/testes to produce an overload of sexual hormones. The affect is to combine extreme arousal with the satiated sense of well-being along with a sensation that some humans could best describe as a combination of being high on cocaine, pot and ecstasy, all at the same time. This effect, unless they are very disciplined mentally, is the more disabling of the weakening side-effects of gold. But this combination of reduced strength and extreme arousal could be wickedly attractive to a human who was trying to become intimate with a Vel, as it does erase enough of their super powers to make dreams come true. The only rub is you are now dealing with a sexual partner who doesn't know when to stop and never really gets tired and is more or less intoxicated. Sounds good at first, but after about twelve hours... well, that's another story. If someone is trying to subdue him or her physically, as in combat, its pretty effective. Heavy steel handcuffs and chains now work against their reduced strength. Their invulnerability is largely intact, although a Prime has ways to render a weakened Velorian ineffective, mainly by stretching the diaphragm and effectively gripping and stopping their heart. That won't kill a Vel, as they can live a long time without a heartbeat, but they can't awaken from that state on their own. You need a few million volts at high amperage to kick start the heart. Most importantly, the weakening via gold doesn't reduce their tissue's natural ability to resist injury very much. So you effectively wind up with a handcuffed Vel whose body is constantly hovering on the edge of orgasm and is more or less out of their mind. Also, as you can see, none of this is easy to do with a weapon. Coating them with a thin layer of gold can confuse their endocrine system for a while and reduce their strength somewhat, but its more effective when used by Primes to bring a Protector down to their level. Additionally, suddenly removing that gold is dangerous as hell. An orgone energy surge explodes inside them that can heat their skin to white-hot and cause momentary loss of control of heat vision, strength, flight powers, etc. Not to mention the mother of all orgasms. You don't want to be in the same building, which is likely to be badly damaged and probably burned to the ground. Lastly, it should be noted that some Vels use small amounts of gold for recreational purposes, usually 18K or lower alloys. Some have learned to walk around partially intoxicated and enjoy it. Those who have relationships with humans can become rather accustomed to wearing it. But they are still completely disabled if exposed to 24K gold in large enough quantities, although their acclimation makes them slightly more capable of functioning under those conditions. But that's not much of an advantage. All you have to do is imagine yourself caught at that very edge of orgasmic release, right at that very, very edge of no return, and then imagine being stuck there for hours and having to engage in mortal combat or related activities at the same time. You would hardly be considered 'combat effective', given your far more urgent agenda, not to mention that you've suddenly become so very weak at the same time. It should be noted that being in the presence of a large mass of gold (many tons, up to and including the planetary cores of Velor and Aria, produces a weakening effect but with out any of the other side effects that come from direct gold contact with their skin. Other Vulnerabilities -- If a Velorian's energy levels are sufficiently reduced, she can experience a complete loss of superhuman abilities until "recharged" with a massive infusion of energy. Their resistance to injury remains significant even when their powers are lost, but total amnesia is often an unfortunate side effect. The restoration of these energies and their resulting superhuman abilities also generally restores their memories. Velorian children are particularly vulnerable to these effects, often running out of energy and becoming forgetful. In addition, a continuous energy attack directly on the storage organs can overload a female’s capacity to absorb and store energy, and can cause sufficient enlargement to become painful, and seriously impair her balance.
Arions
While this worked when the population was small and specialized skills were needed, it soon became too limiting. Couples wanted to determine their own children's characteristics, so a system was set up to allow them to enter the desire outcomes, and the Maternity Engine would consider that in its editing. By doing this, the Maternity Engine systematically bred a more powerful race, and any embryos that failed to meet their standards would be either be used for medical experiments or simply exterminated outright. The so-called Purists supported this approach and tried to maintain what they felt was the Galen's original purpose for their race. To be physically perfect and to fulfill the needs of the society. However, over the following centuries, an increasingly large group of people chose to conceive and bear children naturally. These "Naturalists" (a.k.a. Natural Birthers) believed people should be free to mate with whomever they wanted, and that they should be allowed to bear children normally, despite the "impurities" that would inevitably result. They rejected the Maternity Engine and the careful control it exerted over the racial purity of the Velorian people. Obviously, these various positions were irreconcilable, and eventually a strong leader arose to lead the Naturalists. A civil war ensued, but the remaining Naturalists, nearly a hundred thousand of them, were rounded up and cast out, the Dimensional Transport carrying them to the second planet that had been programmed into the machine, this one a tropical world with a red sun which, like Velor-Daxxan, possessed a gold core and extremely high gravity. There they initially lived fairly normal lives despite their innate powers.
Unlike the other homeworlds, Aria’s very appearance was harsh. Aria’s atmosphere didn't reflect any blue light at all. Hence their new sky was a hellish red that seemingly turned the seas to blood. There were red thundershowers year-round, which helped keep the humid land covered in tall trees. The covering of the trees’ leaves shaded the ground so well, they kept out almost 99% of the sunlight. Darkness suited the dark mood of its new inhabitants. This much is also known about Aria today, but of all the misconceptions still held about the Arion pioneers, perhaps the greatest is the following: according to Velorian historians, the Arions unleashed a genetic virus upon themselves designed to destroy all potential for Velorian appearance in the Arion genome. The virus did the job it was supposed to, but also contributed many other unforeseen changes on the Arion genetic structure. The historians often cite this incident as an example of just how badly the Arions hate the Velorians. How the Arions tell it is another matter entirely. The Velorian senators were not so short-sighted that they would have allowed hundreds of thousands of angry Supremis to find a new homeworld from which they would undoubtedly grow stronger. Unlike the passive Geheimites, the Naturalists clearly intended to return when the time was right and have their revenge. To the Purists, the only sure way to prevent an interplanetary war was to eliminate the threat. The same Velorian biologists who had learned to manipulate genetics to their own ends were secretly employed to create an aerobic virus which would undo the Galen’s efforts and transform the Arions back into normal humans. (The Purists believed this was the best solution, because it meant nobody on either side would have to die.) The virus was implanted in a device called a Genetic Bomb, and a force of Velorian warriors sworn to secrecy then flew to Aria in a stealth ship and detonated the bomb in the upper atmosphere. Within days the virus had spread around the world.
The Betas themselves were further divided by the virus, fully one-half of them not only losing any potential for blond hair, but also having their skin darkened to a tone that on Earth would be called "black". Animosity quickly between the light- and dark-skinned Betas, caused in part by the Supremacist belief of superior status for those who shared the appearance of the original Supremis. Somewhat surprisingly, the Primes would have none of this, and they treated all Betas with equal disdain. To prevent trouble though, they segregated the two populations, eventually settling the majority of them on different planets and staffing their warships and bases with crews of uniform color. This system has largely persisted into current times, though the original animosity has all but disappeared over the centuries. Any major reintegration would only happen at the direction of the current High Command, and neither the High Lords nor the Emperor himself see any need to waste time and energy changing something that has worked for so long.
While the Velorian flamebird has long since been a symbol of the Velorian Enlightenment, much like the eagle is to Rome and Germany, no birds of any kind are native to Aria. Bat-like nightwings, however, are a common sight in the tropical rainforests which still cover the planet. As a result, Arion warriors have adopted the nightwing’s image for their imperial shield, where its body is depicted as a red bat (representing the red sun and skies of Aria) against a black circle. The identification with the sacred "Winged Ones" is so strong that this new emblem has completely replaced the Supremis Shield that the Velorians prefer, and military vehicles are even styled in the image of their new totem, with flowing lines and huge black fins. This strong identification with a winged mammal suggests to many Velorian and Geheimite psychologists that the Arions have never fully recovered from losing the power to fly.
In addition, Arion women are greatly affected by mutagenic hormones that are released by other Arion (or Arion-mutated Terran) females during sexual arousal. Being exposed to these hormones extends a female Arion's arousal-enhanced strength beyond the period of actual arousal. As a result, if an Arion woman were to engage in frequent sexual contact with her sister Arions, she would permanently be twice as strong as a male Arion.
Government and Social Institutions The Arion Empire effectively consists of a single military organization dedicated to the conquest of known space and to the utter destruction of the Velorian race that cast them out and robbed them of their birthright. Below the reigning Emperor is the High Command - a body of twelve appointed leaders known as High Lords who govern the day-to-day affairs of the Empire in the Emperor’s name. The thirteenth and lowest ranking member of the High Command is the Master of Servants, who presides over the Betas. The Emperor meets with his High Lords in the Black Citadel - an impressive fortress made of iron, onyx and stone. Unlike Velorian architecture, the Arion style of decoration and avant-garde buildings can best be described as art nouveau. Sculptured statues line the streets, and the capital city’s hanging gardens are luscious and beautiful. Arions aren't particularly fond of Geheimites, but because that race does not actively oppose them, the Empire doesn't generally take hostile action against them. In fact, over the years the Arions have accepted into their ranks the handful of rogue Geheimites that have rejected pacifism and fled their homeworld to seek action and conquest. Because they fear punishment by the Galens if they were to engage in large scale open conflict, the Arion Empire’s tactics frequently involve infiltration and secret sabotage conducted partly by the Office of Assassins. By undermining a planet's ability to defend itself, the Arions can then conquer it with very little fighting and install an Imperial Governor. Actual combat is normally limited to small (but destructive) engagements between the soldiers from the Imperial Guard and Velorian Protectors along with native defense forces who become aware of Arion intrusion. The Arion population count is hampered by their low birth rate (another side-effect of the Gene Bomb) and frequent deaths when fighting the stronger Velorians. In order to ensure that enough Arion women (especially Primes) have children, birth control and abortion are absolutely forbidden unless ordered by the Ministry of the Imperial State - the same bureaucracy that determine who may mate with whom. Because they are legally required to ingest fertility drugs daily in an effort to combat the problem, Arion females have no more control over their fertility cycle than human women do. When an Arion female finally does gives birth, the baby is immediately taken to one of the Nursery Colonies. Under normal circumstances, neither the mother nor the father will see their child again. Like the Velorians, Arion society is male-dominated and sexist. However, because Arion Primes spend so much time off-world in full possession their superhuman powers, the female energy storage advantages are recognized by the general populace, and thus women are treated with considerably more respect than on Velor. Indeed, an aggressive female who has proven herself in battle can rise fairly high in the Arion command structure. Diaboli
The Diaboli are a client race of the Elders, much as the Supremis are a client of the Galen, yet with uniquely different genetic gifts. Able to look into another person's mind, often from a distance of several meters, they are capable of changing or implanting thoughts and memories. They are also masters of various scientific methods and techniques that are unusual enough such that they are often regarded as being 'magical'. Telekinesis and transformation of matter, as well as the ability to create fantastically complicated hallucinations in the minds of dozens of people simultaneously.
If they confront a Supremis in combat, they are usually capable of implanting such powerful hallucinations and compulsions in to the Supremis' mind that they become ineffective in combat. However, if a Supremis were to lay hands on a Diaboli, they could crush the life from them with little effort. The Diaboli defense, therefore, remains that of remaining hidden from Supremis eyes, or confusing their minds if they are identified.
Given their ability to twist minds, they are especially powerful when they assume roles as actors and musicians, often subtly influencing the minds of thousands. |
