The Nempori

Appearance
The average Nempori is a hideous monstrosity by even the loosest of human standards. The cranium is dominated by a single eye four inches in diameter, and the head is ringed by small prehensile tentacles. Rather than a mouth or nose, the Nempori possess an aardvark like snout with a thin whip-like tongue. The rest of the body is roughly Mollucoid in nature, the limbs are semi-rigid tentacles with the limbs being divided into thinner and more agile 'arm' tentacles and stiffer and thicker 'leg' tentacles. The most commonly seen skin coloration is a lurid green, though brown, red, purple, yellow, white and mottled gray have been seen.

Nempori are an incredibly vain race, often adorning themselves with large numbers of precious jewels, gold and silver jewelry and clotihng that on close inspection is excedingly well made and obviously expensive. This has promoted a sort of racial arrogance among the Nempori and they have few qualms about telling other races just what they think of them. While this has lead to no shortage of fouled first contacts and subsequent space battles, the Nempori are consumate spacers and have defended their stellar domains for a great number of years.

History
Hailing from the cloud-shrouded and water-logged world of Alpha Cerenkov I, the Nempori raised themselves from those ancestral bogs and decided to make their will manifest. 30 centuries later, the first Nempori scouts began to inch across the Cerenkov star cluster and the first colonies were founded. About this time, a bunch of humans wearing armor and red crosses invaded the holy lands and laid waste assured of their importance in the galaxy. The next 10 centuries would yield the slow and steady advancement of Nempori technology as well as the colonization of the Luyten and Sextantis star systems.

Few first contacts were made during this time, but the most notable was the surprisingly benign encounter between the meta-mollusk Nadorhuan of Epsilon Gruis. The meeting of the two races was at best anticlimactic, but was likely the only meeting that didnt end with laser fire and traded insults. Instead the Nadorhuan made contact, promptly surrendered claim to the Mira stars and fled at what the Nempori considered to be incredible velocity. Later contacts with other races, notably the militant Suru and enigmatic myconid Kuttyra would end in a series of battles to determine stellar dominance.

Translators without Equal
One of the things that surprised the Soro, Nadorhuan, and even the staid Kuttyra was the mastery of the Nempori over their respective languages. When first contact was made between Human and Nempor, the human captain attempted to use translation software while the Nempori captain promptly insulted the human for his appearance, the condition of his ship, and his obvious inability to find a suitable mate. The root of the Nempori linguistic ability is thus far unknown, other than the fact that the race can absorb languages the way that plants absorb light.

Nempor Prime and the Colonies
Nempor is a massively industrialized world, with less than 15% of the surface remaining in pre-industrialized condition and of that only 2% is considered pristine. This lead the Nempori to eagerly embrace terraforming and colonization of other worlds. Unlike most other species who have core worlds followed by worlds of geometrically decreasing population, most of the Nempori colonies have around 60 to 75% industrialization and have similar populations. As a result, the bulk of Nempori worlds are well defended in terms of planetary defences, numbers of troops who can be placed on a given field, and a massive infrasctucture for the maintenance of a surprisingly large fleet.

The pride of Nempor is it's fleet of warships. The most fearsome of these are the Intruder class Heavy Cruisers. Covered in armor plating over two meters thick and armed with batteries of gigawatt lasers, these are effective warships. Comprised of a central fusilage with a wide wing attached to the top, the Intruder class cruiser is 700 meters long and 510 meters wide. It is composed of 5 decks, plus an elevated bridge deck, and a lower shuttle deck, extending the total to 7. Power is provided by a centrally mounted toroidal fusion reactor, and the laser batteries are powered by a secondary linear fusion reactor located in the fore section of the ship. The Intruder requires a crew of some 1200 sailors and can carry an additional 500 space marines, and a contingent of 6 Nempori fighters or shuttlecraft.

The biggest flaw of the Intruder class and indeed almost every Nempori warship is poor speed and maneuverability at warp and sublight speeds. While in defensive positions, this is a minor problem, the limitations come to the front when Nempori attempt to engage enemy ships away from their home space. Structural analysis of captured Intruder wreckage reveales that the problem comes from the relative weakness of Nempori power capacitors. While their power cores are able to provide enough power for their weapons and other vital systems, this power feed is almost strangled by the delivery systems. Combined between this power anemia and the considerable mass of Nempori ships makes them easier pickings for fast and maneuverable craft.

The Human-Nempori War
Lasting three years, the HN-War was a decided victory for the loathesome humans and a humiliating defeat for the Nempori. The main cause of the Nempori loss was the large number of guided missle cruisers and frigates deployed by the Human forces. Unable to close with the human ships to employ their laser batteries, most of the Nempori 3rd Provisional Fleet was destroyed by ranged missle attack. This was not a one sided victory as the humans lost roughy a 1/3rd of their ships to Nempori guns and vac-armored space marines. The war was ended with the Peace Accord of Beta Mira, negotiated by the far-faring nomadic Quivvid space traders.

Plans to restart the war and retake the Zeeman supergiant, Vela, and the Raynet star systems were prematurely ended. It was discovered that Human diplomats had already made contact with the Nempori's closest rival, the decidedly territorial and militantly aggressive Soro. The Accords were honored in fear of a joint strike from the hideous humans and the brutal Soro.