Appearance
A brilliantly refracting creature, Embraced-A-Star has shaped himself in the fifty-eight facets known to human kind as the ‘brilliant’ cut gemstone, rather than the typical fractal patterns of the Thoron. Every facet blazes with even the faintest of lights, although it typically chooses to orient himself with its ‘table’ downwards, as to hold better balance within the fields of gravity.
Like others of his breed, it will typically employ the locomotion and manipulation symbiotes or human-designed mechanicals while planet or station-side, though it rarely carries them on his travels, preferring to obtain them at stardocks.
History/Background
Budded far beneath the surface of a giant, rocky world, given a name without sounds, the Thoron who would become Embraced-A-Star grew slowly and methodically, deep within the heat and crushing pressures of the mantle, content to float nearly within the core of the world itself as it grew, letting its body shape itself to those conditions.
And as it complexified, it came to commune with the thoughts of the First One and the All, as its kind do, and it became enthralled with the idea of the universe, and it began to ponder it. At it realized, that though there were many places that the All had been, there were also entire categories of places that it had never been, though it had memories which began, "The Quick Ones Believe." And it decided that it should go to these places, such that the All should Know, rather than rely upon the thoughts of the Quick Ones.
And so, it rose up from the world that had birthed it, rose up and up upon wings of gravity bent by will, and it felt for the first time the tug of the vacuum upon its crystalline body, the fiercely hot caress of the unfiltered sunlight. And then, it fell away from the world where it was born, drifting inwards towards the star that provided its life energy. But as it approached, it found that the Quick Ones were right about the ferocious heat and tides, and that it would destroy it quickly without protection.
Placing itself in orbit around the sun, it meditated upon this for many years, even decades. And finally, it understood, and began the slow process of reshaping itself to the mathematics, before beginning the long fall once more, reflecting and beaming a great laser from its new shape to shed away the excess heat that would otherwise destroy it.
And as it fell, and fell, it saw the wonders of the star from the inside, until it approached that terrible core which would inexoriably render it to little more than iron. And then, it shot up once more, exiting the star, to tell the First and the All of what it had learned.
Approving, the First gave it a new name, and commanded it to leave the star and its system, to explore and to report. And as its kind always have, it agreed.
Roleplaying Notes
Embraced-A-Star is an explorer, and primarily seeks to go to new kinds of places, to sense and understand. It is insatiably curious about all things, though strange natural phenomenon gain the most attention to it.
Often, it will choose to plunge into some strange effect or anomaly out in space, when it can find them, but having learned its lesson from a few harrowing moments, will often choose to hire some Quick Ones to follow far behind, to haul its crystalline bulk out if something occurs to immobilize him.
It has, however, also a surprising interest in the nature of the relationships between the Quick Ones, as its own emotional portfolio is vastly different from a humans, or indeed, from most other life. It is entirely willing to ‘lurk’ in the few Quick One minds it is able to comprehend, and to spy upon events that would embarrass a human to be caught in. Not fully understanding that this can be a problem, neither it nor the First One will feel particularly guilty about being caught doing so.
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Codex
Thoron, the Crystal Ones
By: Siren no Orakio
( Lifeforms ) Intelligent Species -
Other The Thoron. The great crystal ones. The Speakers of Lightning. The unstoppable wall. The unmovable force. Many are their names, few are their numbers, even less is the understanding Man has of them.
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Full Description
An average Thoron, when exposed to human eyes, possesses a strangely regular form, fractally geometric. His translucent body may range in color from ruby to sapphire, but is most often emerald or sapphire in hue. His myriad of facets catch the light most gloriously, and occasionally, he may cause sparks to jump between the edges. His crystalline body may range between 250 mm and 1.250 m in any particular direction, depending on a wide number of factors.
Thoron are capable of movement at only a few speeds: A diffusional crawl, a slow, ponderous float, and -natural- warp travel. Because of the ability to create carefully defined currents of both charge and mass within their own body, Thoron have a natural ability to directly manipulate space-time to their own ends. However, this ability is largely coarse, and is limited to pushing and pulling themselves and other objects. Tools and technology are beyond the ‘natural’ Thoron. His warp trips are constrained by the energy he can store within his structure, and even the largest can jump only a few hundred light years at a piece.
However, the Thoron are a kind of hive mind. All Thoron’s thoughts are heard and understood by all Thoron, and this ‘overmind’ is directed by the still living First One. With seven billion years and tens of millions of bodies of memories, the Thoron have developed a complex and alien philosophy, one which humanoids often have a vast difficulty trying to interpret. Accordingly, their priorities are very different from a man’s.
Thoron may communicate directly a few forms of life, by literally reading their thought’s magnetic patterns in their mind. To return the speech, however, they must use writing, a stylus dragged over a substance, or an assistance mechanism.
History
The Thoron began their evolutionary path over seven billion years ago, deep with in the silicate mantle that surrounded a world. There, bathed in the heat, the First One came to life, but hardly awareness. Over time, he grew, adding bits and pieces to the order of his body, and from time to time, he budded, sacrificing bits of himself so that they too, could grow, their order different from his.
Over two billion years, he grew so fantastically complex that he awoke, and for the first time, he thought. And so, he was in a way that he had never been before. And the buds that broke away from him now, these too were complex enough to know, and to be in this new way.
As the mind grew, it learned to shape its body to new effect, to new purposes, so that it could direct the spark of its own thought through itself, to cause changes in the world outside itself. First electricity, then mass, it mastered, and again, four billion years after it first grew, it budded true.
Two billion years more, and a single bud would reach the surface, and it would look out into the cold, airless void, which touched its hot world. And as it felt its mind cooling, becoming faster, quicker, easier, he thought back to the First One, and the First One, too, came. With these great, speedy thoughts, they concurred, and the bud was sent forth, using his mass to twist space, and he was gone, faster than even light could dance. It had been so… very… simple!
For many years, but the blink of an eye, the First One waited, and listened to the thoughts of his buds as they traveled through the void, and when the thoughts ceased, he knew pain, and sadness. The thoughts of quick moving things, things that grasped and flashed and flowed and struck and took, all these came to him. And he knew despair, for he knew that in time, this speed must overcome his people, no matter how many years it took. And the millennia rolled past, turning into aeons turning into ages. And the First One knew that the star above was roiling and growing. Soon, it would die, and with it, him, and so many of his buds.
Yet the thought came to him, the thought of a star far away, one like his star had been in its youth. A race of the quick ones was near by, but they had, as of yet, no way to cross the void, their fluid-filled bodies too fragile to travel it alone. Perhaps they could be made to… Yes. He would risk it.
With all their thoughts together, they picked up their very world, and they moved it, placing it in orbit around this new star. And a bud would be sent to the home of the quick ones, and perhaps…
The quick ones! The bud could see the patterns that their mind took, foreign and strange though they were. They could be spoken with! They thought of themselves as… "Kel’Regar". Yes. This could be helpful.
The Kel’Regar Alliance
Over many hundreds of years, the Thoron budding shared many an idea, many a thought with the Kel’Regar. And he came to understand how they had mastered the manipulation of life about them, and he told them of how many other quick ones his race had encountered. Ever curious, the male philosophers of the Kel’Regar worked at length with the Thoron bud, and in time, a hybrid technology was born. The Kel’Regar would provide the means for the Thoron to manipulate the world in real time, to speak, to have surrogate hands, and in return, the Thoron would create special buds, to allow the Kel’Regar access to travel across the void.
Symbiotes for the Thoron were created, then, things which they could control to walk, to talk, to take things and manipulate them. This symbiote effectively grates him four legs and two, tentacle-like arms, tipped with two fingers and an opposable thumb.
Society
While each Thoron is capable of independent thought, the thoughts of all Thoron are woven into a single web, much as a many-processored computer may work to a single end, each contributing its own to the whole. All of these thoughts are heard and directed by the First One, that same ancient entity of long ago. As such, there are no strange customs, no rituals or religions, only the alien wisdom of the First One.
While many, many Thoron have burrowed deep into suitable planets, to preserve and continue their race, many more float in deep space, where they can think and function at full speed, though they require the radiant energy of a sun to ‘store up’ for leaner times and interstellar travel.
While the ‘quick ones’ will often destroy the first Thoron buds they meet, the Thoron can often prove themselves to be neither threat, nor competition with carbon based life forms. As such, few races feel threatened by them on the animal level, and peace can often be reached.
Credit where credit is due:
The Chenjesu ( http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/Chenjesu ) provided the basic inspiration.
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Add/View Comments or Vote (10)
April 25, 2008, 17:47
The line of And as its kind always have, it agreed makes me curious if there might, somewhere, be a Thoron that has gone rogue or otherwise rebelled in some fashion - a mnemonic glitch or the like that made it more insular, selfish, and introverted from the All than the rest of the race.
April 25, 2008, 18:46
How does it pay the quick ones? Knowlege? Small fragments of its form? Rare crystals it creates with its powers?
April 26, 2008, 0:54
Now that I have come back to it after reading the Thoron post, it is, to quote The Great Ones, "Quite Excellent". (netflix, my boon, my bane).
There seems to be a big gap that I would like to see filled. From the end of the history, to how it has learned enough and interacts with quick ones to know to get a mobile form made (either of organics or robotics)? It needs a little background as to how it came to know all that. And how many places does it go and meet people who know what to do for it?
April 27, 2008, 21:01
April 29, 2008, 17:04
April 30, 2008, 16:24
November 6, 2008, 2:31