'Humanized' Name: Cadence Cobalt
Full Title: Soldier Cadence of Hive Cobalt, Born of Queen Symphony The Fifteenth and Hive Crimson's Prince Cresendo The Twelfth
Nickname: Cadie
Age: 24
Birthday: Autumn
Gender: ????? - Cadence's equivalent to a gender identity is bound to her caste and doesn't map easily to concepts like masculinity or femininity. Most accustomed to she/her and they/them pronouns being used by aliens who have gender pronouns, but won't care if others are applied.
Species: Ariacorean (Alien)
Class: College
Subject/Work: Teaches classes on Artificial Intelligence, with a focus on their history and social status in different parts of Milky Way, in addition to teaching history and cultural classes about the Ariacorean Empire. She also makes repairs and upgrades to various high technology used for academic purposes.
Appearance Description:
Cadence is deceptively human-like at first glance. She could bring to mind an alien out of a science fiction television show, being played by a human actress, albeit an extremely athletic one. She stands six feet, two inches, and is distinctly robust in frame, with broad shoulders and wide, curvy hips that are likely to attract the description of 'child-bearing;' those hips are most of what she has curve-wise, though, as her small bust is frequently lost in her clothing (when she can be bothered to wear it). Toned muscle lines her body, giving her a build that speaks of raw strength and the endurance to tirelessly make use of that strength. Those muscles are beneath pastel blue skin that, to the touch, is similar to suede, and is dotted all over by darker blue, freckle-like dots.
Cadence's facial features follow that same theme of strength, angular and harsh, said angles only underscored by her facial markings, which are made of reflective silver-blue 'scales' comparable to those of a fish; lines run down her cheeks to her jaw and swoop up past her temples to surround her brows. She is capable of making them glow at will and will often do so to help her see in the dark. Helping in that endeavor are her eyes, her cold grey irises looking relatively human in daylight but taking on a greenish hue and reflective quality in lower lighting.
Her hair is silky in texture and the deep cobalt blue of her hive name, shaved on the left side and spilling down the right in waves past her shoulder. Hinting that her diet veers toward the more carnivorous side of omnivorous, Cadence's smile reveals a set of sharp teeth behind her lips, not entirely unsuited for consuming plants but more suited to tearing meat than a human's would be.
More bio-luminescent scales, like those on Cadence's face, can found on her back in swirling markings. A few can also be found on her pelvis and inner thighs.
Cadence doesn't have much in the way of a personal style, fashion-wise. Clothing is entirely optional where she comes from and so she's more likely to take cues from those she spends time with regarding what would look good on her and would be appropriate for a given setting, just so long as it's comfortable. She will not suffer through discomfort for the sake of looking pretty unless she's especially fond of the person she's trying to impress.
Cadence has a subtly spicy scent, and her voice is a smooth, deep contralto, the rhythm of her speech melodious when she's not grasping for what to say. Her words are sometimes punctuated with soft purrs and dove-like coos, as well as high-pitched chirps and chatters that are her equivalent to laughter.
Personality Description:
Human-like on the outside, distinctly not so under the surface. Oh, some things are the same, and her body language is readable with little trouble. In fact, she almost seems a little larger than life, incredibly animated and expressive; she waves her arms around when she speaks, and why give a little smile when she can grin instead? Part of this is deliberate, to better convey her mood to beings that don't just automatically know, but a lot of it is a natural boisterousness.
Cadence is also extremely tactile, prone to everything from friendly claps on the shoulder to pulling people into bear hugs with little warning. Her affection can veer into discomforting territory quickly for some, however, as she's also liberal with little cheek and forehead kisses to express joy, or to try to comfort, but she's working to tone it down for the sake of politeness, as difficult as that is. She craves touch, especially in the absence of telepathic contact. It's her way of reassuring herself that those around her really are there.
Telepathy is extremely important to an Ariacorean, and Cadence, while one of the lucky ones who can separate from the hive mind without being traumatized by the experience, still has trouble with mental isolation. Verbal speech, while taught from a young age on her homeworld these days, is secondary to the ability to express herself in pure thought, and so her words sometimes trip over themselves and she fights to find ones that work to express the idea in her mind. Written speech is even further behind in importance to her society, and so she uses it in an extremely utilitarian fashion, forgoing grammar and syntax to convey things in as few words as possible.
Someone with an anthropocentric viewpoint could, as a consequence, dismiss her as unintelligent or uneducated. She is not. Cadence came to Earth for a reason, and that becomes clear for anyone who sees her in her element. She has a sharp eye for detail when it comes to technology, and an odd natural empathy for technology that has advanced to the point of sapience. Diagnosing problems and fixing them is child's play, and interacting with artificial beings will see a very patient, gentle, thoughtful side to her personality.
To Cadie, a 'malfunctioning' AI is like a person who is frightened, hurt, sick, or all three, and she works to comfort and soothe as well as correct the error. She wants them to always know they aren't alone, and at least one organic person understands them.
As for other sapient organic species, well, she's still friendly, but it's clear that they are an other in her mind. Ariacorean are naturally orderly, but Cadence's idea of 'orderly' only fits her own definition and not the local one. Earth society looks chaotic and nonsensical to her, their social structures utterly alien to her own in everything from gender roles to courtship practices, not even getting into their law system. And the way those people wear clothes all the time, even in summer! No matter her attempt to put her prejudices aside, the fact that nothing fits into a familiar hive structure leaves her feeling frustrated and lost more often than not.
However, to an Earthling, she herself seems chaotic. She's an open thrill-seeker when not working, and doesn't care much about whether her fun is socially acceptable or even legal. Not that she'll do anything truly harmful (as she perceives it) to someone for giggles, but it's clear that she delights in stirring up minor trouble and seeing what she can get away with. She likes to poke and prod at the people around her to see how they tick, and occasionally subtly pushes them to see if they'll try to establish boundaries or exert dominance. Then, on the flip side, she'll suddenly 'adopt' another person seemingly at random, deciding that she needs to protect them or do what they say.
On the bad days, Cadence's mood can fluctuate rapidly, swinging from territorial and short-tempered, to extroverted and flirtatious, and back again, due to instincts to 'establish a hive' that have been thrown out of whack by her presence in Terran space. All of it makes her look like an erratic troublemaker, a surefire headache for anyone she doesn't respect who tries to rein her in.
She's trying, though. Trying to stabilize, to adjust, to understand these Earthlings the way she does her AI friends. It's just going to take time.
Powers/Species Abilities:
Soldier Ariacorean
The Ariacorean are an omnivorous species hailing from a system in what Earth astronomers refer to as the Wild Duck Cluster. They form large, structured hives and sort into six castes: queen, prince, soldier, worker, medic, and magi. The queens and princes are 'royal' castes and rarer, while soldiers, workers, and medics are commoners, with the magi as something of a wildcard with traits of both. Being an Ariacorean, and specifically a soldier, gives Cadence a number of traits:
Alien Physiology
Ariacorean have thick skin that is harder to break through than a human's, meant as protection from thorns and from sharp branches when they climb. It's hardly to the point of being proper armour, but someone looking to harm Cadence with a sharp object will have to put a little more force into it to pierce her skin, and she's unlikely to acquire as many of the minor injuries that most who work with their hands need to worry about.
Being part of the soldier caste grants Cadence further advantages. Dangerous in close quarters, her muscles are far from for show, and she has a very strong grip for situations requiring her to climb or grapple, as well as the endurance for long marches. That said, she's not at the peak of physical fitness for her species, and so, compared to humans, she'd rank as highly athletic, but nothing superhuman.
If someone does injure her, they'll notice that her blood is a green and slightly thicker than human blood, being copper-based; it clots quicker in wounds than human blood does, lessening blood loss. Species that feed on the iron-based blood of most Terran species will tend to find it unappetizing and lacking in the nutrition they require, if still technically drinkable. Magic rituals that require blood, however, don't seem to have any trouble recognizing it as a component.
Alien Life Cycle
Airacorean have a reputation of being a species that conquers their environment with a ruthless, constantly-expanding swarm, and it isn't too hard to see where these stories come from when looking at their biology. Compared to humanity, Cadence's people breed fast, grow up fast, and live long.
Commoner mothers average three to five eggs in their clutches, while the powerful, but rarer, queens can sometimes have upwards of ten. These 'eggs' are very different from the eggs of Terran species, and while they start out a minuscule golf ball size, they expand over time, growing with the infants over the course of a few months until they are closer to basketball-sized and finally break open to reveal the child within.
Ariacorean are up and walking within hours of hatching, and already have a degree of dexterity with their hands. Their bio-luminescent markings form in their first year of life, the placement of which will designate their assigned caste. All castes have them on the back and pelvis/thighs, but soldiers will also have them on the face, medics the throat and shoulders, workers the arms, queens the chest, and princes the lower legs, while magi have no extra markings. From there, they grow and mature rapidly, reaching adulthood by twelve years old.
Despite this swift maturation, adult Ariacorean age slowly from then onward. Commoners are known to surpass one hundred and twenty years of age, while a royal or magi could reach one hundred and sixty, still a blink to the millennia-old immortals of the universe but quite long-lived to a human point of view, and plenty of time to have numerous clutches of eggs if the hive seeks to expand its influence.
Crepuscular Adaptation
A species that developed in an environment similar to a rain forest, the Ariacorean are adapted for hunting during dawn and dusk beneath a thick canopy. Their eyes are built to function in low lighting provided by the bio-luminescence of plants found on the floor of the forests, and their markings are there to provide illumination whenever the plant life is insufficient.
Because of this, Cadence has excellent night vision, and can track movement better than a human can, able to follow objects and beings that are moving too quickly for a human's eye to properly register. However, bright sunlight and artificial lights can be uncomfortable, even painful, requiring her to wear eye protection during sunny days and in fully-lit rooms. She also has difficulty with a fully diurnal schedule and so will take naps throughout both the middle of the day and the middle of the night, being most alert and active in the evening and early morning.
Self-Modification
Those sensitive to magical energies will notice is that Cadence, and by extension all members of her species, generate mana. She does not have any ability to cast spells, and her life does not depend on its presence, as she could easily be drained and left unharmed by the experience. This mana does, however, fuel some important aspects of her biology, even if they are nothing that affects her immediate survival.
Most Ariacorean are, to a small degree, shapeshifters, though those accustomed to the more complete transformations of many supernatural species may not immediately recognize it as such. While they can not take on entirely new shapes, their basic frame is slightly flexible, and how exactly they can modify it depends on their caste. Cadence, being a soldier, has two tricks, one unique to her specific caste and the other universal to non-royals.
The first is the ability of Cadence to modify the pigment, and texture, of her skin, used primarily for camouflage purposes to make her a more effective scout or ambush hunter. With colours, the more the hues differ from her natural pigment, and the more elaborate the patterns and variety, the more energy it takes to maintain, and an extremely complex change may only be able to maintained for a few minutes; the main limitation is that she can not change her bio-luminescent markings, which remain constant.
Regarding texture, she can cause small bumps and ridges to form below the outermost layer of her skin in patterns of her choice, intended for mimicking the feel of different tree barks or other plant surfaces, though these are never thick enough to make for any kind of discernible extra defense against weaponry and take significant effort to extend over more than a small portion of her body; covering her whole body would last only a minute before she reverted to normal. This ability requires strategic, small-scale changes and use of hiding spots to be used effectively.
Hive Mind
An extremely important part of Ariacorean culture is the hive mind. This telepathic network is one that every member of the species is immediately part of upon hatching, and even before then; it is possible to find the spaces where the underdeveloped minds of the unhatched children in a clutch fit if the person in question knows how to look. Linking into the hive mind has, so far, been proven to be impossible for other telepathic species, the connection on a wavelength that others can not properly attune themselves to.
Communication within the hive mind is instinctive and does not need to be taught, the newly-hatched already using it on a basic level from day one. At default, the hive mind is a 'hum' going on all around them, like a music playing at a low volume to the point that all but the general beat and melody is muffled, reassuring the Ariacorean in question that people are there but providing little detail. An individual is then able to send a general 'call' into the surrounding area (often a request for information), or to deliberately search for a familiar mind to send a specific, private message to.
Messages are sent and received rapidly, and generally do not consist of words. Emotions, images, and general concepts are woven together, forming 'songs' and 'dances.' Songs are distinguished by being primarily emotion-heavy, such as a sad Ariacorean calling out for someone to comfort them, while dances are based around practical information, such as asking for directions. Components of songs are called 'notes,' while components of dances are referred to as 'steps.'
Messages, however, are rarely purely one or the other, an Ariacorean's mood tinting their dance with song notes or the reasons for their current emotion adding dance steps to their song. The description is merely for what the main purpose is.
Each individual Airacorean has a specific telepathic range around themselves. Those currently within an individual's range will be easy to detect and locate, giving them good idea of where the other is relative to them. Songs and dances will be crystal clear when sent between two Airacorean who are both within the range of the other. When one is in range of the other but not vice-versa, such as a commoner close enough to be in a royal's much larger range but too far away for the royal to be in theirs, the commoner will not be able to locate the royal beyond vague generalities, and songs and dances sent to them by the royal may come through missing notes and steps if they are too complex. The royal, however, will still know where the commoner is and get their messages loud and clear.
Thanks to these limited ranges, communicating over long distances tends to turn into a game of telephone between individuals along the route between them unless the ones seeking to speak make use of verbal speech over actual telephones, or write letters.
The exact range of an individual varies primarily on birth caste, with royals having a much wider one than the commoners. Cadence, being a soldier, has a range that would cover Manta Carlos City if she herself were in it, or the same level of Starlight Observation Station she was currently standing in, but not the whole island or station.
Telepathic isolation sets off extremely strong instinctive urges to establish territory and seek out mates, causing Ariacorean in mixed-species areas to clump together if it all possible, often to the point of sharing living areas. Soldiers, like Cadence, will experience wild mood swings when cut off from all, or even most, contact, while workers and medics suffer from extreme anxiety and panic, frequently displaying symptoms of PTSD after the fact. Royals and magi tend toward depressive episodes and insomnia.
Because of this heavy dependency on the hive mind, Ariacorean are very susceptible to outside manipulation, but also very aware of it. They can't block a foreign telepath from making contact with their mind, even if they wanted to, but there is no such thing as avoiding detection no matter how subtle the power. Anyone who would normally struggle to read or manipulate a mind will find Cadence's laughably easy to do such a thing to, but she will know that the attempt is happening and where it's coming from.
Biography:
So, how does a telepathic alien with a passion for high technology end up way out in Terran space teaching Earthlings about her people? Well, being the offspring of a queen and prince certainly helped. While not a royal herself, she was born to a clutch between a queen of Cobalt and prince of Crimson, her and her siblings a symbol of unity between the greater hives. So, needless to say, she had a bit of a luxurious upbringing, with an expectation that the hatchlings would grow to do great things.
Cadence proved to be a soldier, through and through, but not in the sense that the outsiders who had once given the caste such a name would have expected. Soldier caste were the explorers, scouts, hunters, the ones who struck out into the unknown and brought knowledge and resources back to the hive. In wartime, she likely would have been military, but now, in a time when the Empire had abandoned aggressive expansion in favour of cooperation with other species, she turned her attention to science, enthralled by the opportunity for discovery and innovation.
Still, it was unlikely that Cadence would have left the Empire's borders for some time if not for what happened when she was fifteen, the day she met the being who would become her best friend. She'd been taking a mechanic job on a colony world on the fringes of Imperial space, when a strange object crash-landed outside of the garage. It proved to be a primitive space probe, and Cadence soon realized that it was equipped with an Artificial Intelligence, but one who had no way to communicate with the hardware so heavily damaged by the crash.
With hours of frantic work, she transferred the poor thing to her own tech and did her best to introduce code that would allow them to speak and understand verbal Imperial. Once communication was established, they spoke at length, Cadence doing her best to calm the confused AI and figure out where the probe had come from. The answer shocked her: Apparently, it had come from the strange little planet of Earth, having long been dismissed by the Empire as a backwater world, little more than a glorified zoo.
And so began Cadence's trip to Earth. She pulled the strings her family had provided to her until they threatened to break. A map, a ship, and a crew were assembled by stubbornness backed with wealth, and they took off for Terran space. Luckily, they knew enough regarding where to land without terrifying the populace, and Cadence's first steps on Earth were on Manta Carlos; the young soldier was instantly bombarded by the wildly varied populace and their chaotic ways, and found herself with an odd, mildly-horrified fascination.
The AI, whom Cadence had nicknamed 'Tempo,' however, soon realized that this wasn't really the home they'd been intended to report back to. They were from Earth, but clearly not this one. They were from a different place on the timeline, or perhaps an alternate version entirely, and something out there in space had pulled them to...here. With this revelation, Cadence offered to bring Tempo back to the Empire, even to vouch for them being granted full citizenship, and they agreed.
Well, after the crew got a much-needed bit of shore leave and Cadence got to learn a few of the baffling aspects of Earth culture firsthand. Like who 'Captain Kirk' was and why her presence would result in someone invoking the name. She walked away from the encounter mostly thinking that humans were weird. Kind of cute, maybe, but definitely weird.
Once settled back home, Cadence and Tempo went back to work, together, but they never quite stopped paying attention to news about Earth, what of it there was. The progress on their space station was of particular interest to Cadence, and as it neared completion, she chose to send a message out, prefaced with a cheery, "Remember me?" To her, if Earth was really going to be making themselves part of the galactic community, someone clearly needed to teach them about the glory of the Ariacorean Empire.
Besides, there were surely going to be AIs hanging around the station, and, no offense, but they were going to need someone who really knew their way around sapient technology keeping an eye on things. Tempo's Earth and this Earth may have technically been different, but she still wasn't sure if she trusted the Earthlings to know what they were doing.
And, you know, if she happened to lay the groundwork for a Ariacorean hive to be established on Earth, that would certainly prove that everybody had been right about her clutch being destined for greatness. She just needed to deal with the silence long enough to find a home fit for a queen...
Additional Information:
- 'Ariacorean' is based on combination of the words aria ("elaborate melody sung solo with accompaniment") and terpischorean ("pertaining to dancing").
-The word 'Ariacorean' can refer to Cadence's species and any citizen of the Ariacorean Empire, usually with their species stated afterward for clarification if need be. AIs are also full citizens of the Empire alongside biological beings. Power in the Empire is split between the 'greater hives' (more or less like countries) of Hive Cobalt, Hive Crimson, Hive Viridian, and Hive Ash, but they work together to show a united face to the galaxy.
-Cadence has ten clutch-siblings: Symphony (queen caste), Adagio (magi caste), Ballad (medic caste), Legato (worker caste), Staccato (medic caste), Downbeat (soldier caste), Melody (medic caste), Harmony (soldier caste), Glissade (worker caste), and Lyric (worker caste). She also has eighteen older half-siblings from the two clutches her mother had before them, and nine younger half-siblings from the clutch after. She has half-siblings through her father, too, but hasn't tracked down who they all are yet.
Full Title: Soldier Cadence of Hive Cobalt, Born of Queen Symphony The Fifteenth and Hive Crimson's Prince Cresendo The Twelfth
Nickname: Cadie
Age: 24
Birthday: Autumn
Gender: ????? - Cadence's equivalent to a gender identity is bound to her caste and doesn't map easily to concepts like masculinity or femininity. Most accustomed to she/her and they/them pronouns being used by aliens who have gender pronouns, but won't care if others are applied.
Species: Ariacorean (Alien)
Class: College
Subject/Work: Teaches classes on Artificial Intelligence, with a focus on their history and social status in different parts of Milky Way, in addition to teaching history and cultural classes about the Ariacorean Empire. She also makes repairs and upgrades to various high technology used for academic purposes.
Appearance Description:
Cadence is deceptively human-like at first glance. She could bring to mind an alien out of a science fiction television show, being played by a human actress, albeit an extremely athletic one. She stands six feet, two inches, and is distinctly robust in frame, with broad shoulders and wide, curvy hips that are likely to attract the description of 'child-bearing;' those hips are most of what she has curve-wise, though, as her small bust is frequently lost in her clothing (when she can be bothered to wear it). Toned muscle lines her body, giving her a build that speaks of raw strength and the endurance to tirelessly make use of that strength. Those muscles are beneath pastel blue skin that, to the touch, is similar to suede, and is dotted all over by darker blue, freckle-like dots.
Cadence's facial features follow that same theme of strength, angular and harsh, said angles only underscored by her facial markings, which are made of reflective silver-blue 'scales' comparable to those of a fish; lines run down her cheeks to her jaw and swoop up past her temples to surround her brows. She is capable of making them glow at will and will often do so to help her see in the dark. Helping in that endeavor are her eyes, her cold grey irises looking relatively human in daylight but taking on a greenish hue and reflective quality in lower lighting.
Her hair is silky in texture and the deep cobalt blue of her hive name, shaved on the left side and spilling down the right in waves past her shoulder. Hinting that her diet veers toward the more carnivorous side of omnivorous, Cadence's smile reveals a set of sharp teeth behind her lips, not entirely unsuited for consuming plants but more suited to tearing meat than a human's would be.
More bio-luminescent scales, like those on Cadence's face, can found on her back in swirling markings. A few can also be found on her pelvis and inner thighs.
Cadence doesn't have much in the way of a personal style, fashion-wise. Clothing is entirely optional where she comes from and so she's more likely to take cues from those she spends time with regarding what would look good on her and would be appropriate for a given setting, just so long as it's comfortable. She will not suffer through discomfort for the sake of looking pretty unless she's especially fond of the person she's trying to impress.
Cadence has a subtly spicy scent, and her voice is a smooth, deep contralto, the rhythm of her speech melodious when she's not grasping for what to say. Her words are sometimes punctuated with soft purrs and dove-like coos, as well as high-pitched chirps and chatters that are her equivalent to laughter.
Personality Description:
Human-like on the outside, distinctly not so under the surface. Oh, some things are the same, and her body language is readable with little trouble. In fact, she almost seems a little larger than life, incredibly animated and expressive; she waves her arms around when she speaks, and why give a little smile when she can grin instead? Part of this is deliberate, to better convey her mood to beings that don't just automatically know, but a lot of it is a natural boisterousness.
Cadence is also extremely tactile, prone to everything from friendly claps on the shoulder to pulling people into bear hugs with little warning. Her affection can veer into discomforting territory quickly for some, however, as she's also liberal with little cheek and forehead kisses to express joy, or to try to comfort, but she's working to tone it down for the sake of politeness, as difficult as that is. She craves touch, especially in the absence of telepathic contact. It's her way of reassuring herself that those around her really are there.
Telepathy is extremely important to an Ariacorean, and Cadence, while one of the lucky ones who can separate from the hive mind without being traumatized by the experience, still has trouble with mental isolation. Verbal speech, while taught from a young age on her homeworld these days, is secondary to the ability to express herself in pure thought, and so her words sometimes trip over themselves and she fights to find ones that work to express the idea in her mind. Written speech is even further behind in importance to her society, and so she uses it in an extremely utilitarian fashion, forgoing grammar and syntax to convey things in as few words as possible.
Someone with an anthropocentric viewpoint could, as a consequence, dismiss her as unintelligent or uneducated. She is not. Cadence came to Earth for a reason, and that becomes clear for anyone who sees her in her element. She has a sharp eye for detail when it comes to technology, and an odd natural empathy for technology that has advanced to the point of sapience. Diagnosing problems and fixing them is child's play, and interacting with artificial beings will see a very patient, gentle, thoughtful side to her personality.
To Cadie, a 'malfunctioning' AI is like a person who is frightened, hurt, sick, or all three, and she works to comfort and soothe as well as correct the error. She wants them to always know they aren't alone, and at least one organic person understands them.
As for other sapient organic species, well, she's still friendly, but it's clear that they are an other in her mind. Ariacorean are naturally orderly, but Cadence's idea of 'orderly' only fits her own definition and not the local one. Earth society looks chaotic and nonsensical to her, their social structures utterly alien to her own in everything from gender roles to courtship practices, not even getting into their law system. And the way those people wear clothes all the time, even in summer! No matter her attempt to put her prejudices aside, the fact that nothing fits into a familiar hive structure leaves her feeling frustrated and lost more often than not.
However, to an Earthling, she herself seems chaotic. She's an open thrill-seeker when not working, and doesn't care much about whether her fun is socially acceptable or even legal. Not that she'll do anything truly harmful (as she perceives it) to someone for giggles, but it's clear that she delights in stirring up minor trouble and seeing what she can get away with. She likes to poke and prod at the people around her to see how they tick, and occasionally subtly pushes them to see if they'll try to establish boundaries or exert dominance. Then, on the flip side, she'll suddenly 'adopt' another person seemingly at random, deciding that she needs to protect them or do what they say.
On the bad days, Cadence's mood can fluctuate rapidly, swinging from territorial and short-tempered, to extroverted and flirtatious, and back again, due to instincts to 'establish a hive' that have been thrown out of whack by her presence in Terran space. All of it makes her look like an erratic troublemaker, a surefire headache for anyone she doesn't respect who tries to rein her in.
She's trying, though. Trying to stabilize, to adjust, to understand these Earthlings the way she does her AI friends. It's just going to take time.
Powers/Species Abilities:
Soldier Ariacorean
The Ariacorean are an omnivorous species hailing from a system in what Earth astronomers refer to as the Wild Duck Cluster. They form large, structured hives and sort into six castes: queen, prince, soldier, worker, medic, and magi. The queens and princes are 'royal' castes and rarer, while soldiers, workers, and medics are commoners, with the magi as something of a wildcard with traits of both. Being an Ariacorean, and specifically a soldier, gives Cadence a number of traits:
Alien Physiology
Ariacorean have thick skin that is harder to break through than a human's, meant as protection from thorns and from sharp branches when they climb. It's hardly to the point of being proper armour, but someone looking to harm Cadence with a sharp object will have to put a little more force into it to pierce her skin, and she's unlikely to acquire as many of the minor injuries that most who work with their hands need to worry about.
Being part of the soldier caste grants Cadence further advantages. Dangerous in close quarters, her muscles are far from for show, and she has a very strong grip for situations requiring her to climb or grapple, as well as the endurance for long marches. That said, she's not at the peak of physical fitness for her species, and so, compared to humans, she'd rank as highly athletic, but nothing superhuman.
If someone does injure her, they'll notice that her blood is a green and slightly thicker than human blood, being copper-based; it clots quicker in wounds than human blood does, lessening blood loss. Species that feed on the iron-based blood of most Terran species will tend to find it unappetizing and lacking in the nutrition they require, if still technically drinkable. Magic rituals that require blood, however, don't seem to have any trouble recognizing it as a component.
Alien Life Cycle
Airacorean have a reputation of being a species that conquers their environment with a ruthless, constantly-expanding swarm, and it isn't too hard to see where these stories come from when looking at their biology. Compared to humanity, Cadence's people breed fast, grow up fast, and live long.
Commoner mothers average three to five eggs in their clutches, while the powerful, but rarer, queens can sometimes have upwards of ten. These 'eggs' are very different from the eggs of Terran species, and while they start out a minuscule golf ball size, they expand over time, growing with the infants over the course of a few months until they are closer to basketball-sized and finally break open to reveal the child within.
Ariacorean are up and walking within hours of hatching, and already have a degree of dexterity with their hands. Their bio-luminescent markings form in their first year of life, the placement of which will designate their assigned caste. All castes have them on the back and pelvis/thighs, but soldiers will also have them on the face, medics the throat and shoulders, workers the arms, queens the chest, and princes the lower legs, while magi have no extra markings. From there, they grow and mature rapidly, reaching adulthood by twelve years old.
Despite this swift maturation, adult Ariacorean age slowly from then onward. Commoners are known to surpass one hundred and twenty years of age, while a royal or magi could reach one hundred and sixty, still a blink to the millennia-old immortals of the universe but quite long-lived to a human point of view, and plenty of time to have numerous clutches of eggs if the hive seeks to expand its influence.
Crepuscular Adaptation
A species that developed in an environment similar to a rain forest, the Ariacorean are adapted for hunting during dawn and dusk beneath a thick canopy. Their eyes are built to function in low lighting provided by the bio-luminescence of plants found on the floor of the forests, and their markings are there to provide illumination whenever the plant life is insufficient.
Because of this, Cadence has excellent night vision, and can track movement better than a human can, able to follow objects and beings that are moving too quickly for a human's eye to properly register. However, bright sunlight and artificial lights can be uncomfortable, even painful, requiring her to wear eye protection during sunny days and in fully-lit rooms. She also has difficulty with a fully diurnal schedule and so will take naps throughout both the middle of the day and the middle of the night, being most alert and active in the evening and early morning.
Self-Modification
Those sensitive to magical energies will notice is that Cadence, and by extension all members of her species, generate mana. She does not have any ability to cast spells, and her life does not depend on its presence, as she could easily be drained and left unharmed by the experience. This mana does, however, fuel some important aspects of her biology, even if they are nothing that affects her immediate survival.
Most Ariacorean are, to a small degree, shapeshifters, though those accustomed to the more complete transformations of many supernatural species may not immediately recognize it as such. While they can not take on entirely new shapes, their basic frame is slightly flexible, and how exactly they can modify it depends on their caste. Cadence, being a soldier, has two tricks, one unique to her specific caste and the other universal to non-royals.
The first is the ability of Cadence to modify the pigment, and texture, of her skin, used primarily for camouflage purposes to make her a more effective scout or ambush hunter. With colours, the more the hues differ from her natural pigment, and the more elaborate the patterns and variety, the more energy it takes to maintain, and an extremely complex change may only be able to maintained for a few minutes; the main limitation is that she can not change her bio-luminescent markings, which remain constant.
Regarding texture, she can cause small bumps and ridges to form below the outermost layer of her skin in patterns of her choice, intended for mimicking the feel of different tree barks or other plant surfaces, though these are never thick enough to make for any kind of discernible extra defense against weaponry and take significant effort to extend over more than a small portion of her body; covering her whole body would last only a minute before she reverted to normal. This ability requires strategic, small-scale changes and use of hiding spots to be used effectively.
The second trick is a more thorough change of her anatomy, but a very specific one. The Ariacorean are an egg-laying species, and their commoner castes can both lay eggs and sire them. Internally, a oviduct in roughly the same place that a human's womb would be and a set of gonads in roughly the same area as ovaries are always internally present, but the external sex organ shape shifts back and forth between what would typically be considered 'male' and 'female' at the Ariacorean's will.
The change is not instant, and in fact, for a soldier, it can take as long as eight hours and, if extra mana is spent to speed it up, as short as six hours. The transitional phase is not pleasant, ranging from mere discomfort to mild pain depending on the speed of the change, with faster being worse than slower. Because of this, most do not change frequently.
The change is not instant, and in fact, for a soldier, it can take as long as eight hours and, if extra mana is spent to speed it up, as short as six hours. The transitional phase is not pleasant, ranging from mere discomfort to mild pain depending on the speed of the change, with faster being worse than slower. Because of this, most do not change frequently.
Hive Mind
An extremely important part of Ariacorean culture is the hive mind. This telepathic network is one that every member of the species is immediately part of upon hatching, and even before then; it is possible to find the spaces where the underdeveloped minds of the unhatched children in a clutch fit if the person in question knows how to look. Linking into the hive mind has, so far, been proven to be impossible for other telepathic species, the connection on a wavelength that others can not properly attune themselves to.
Communication within the hive mind is instinctive and does not need to be taught, the newly-hatched already using it on a basic level from day one. At default, the hive mind is a 'hum' going on all around them, like a music playing at a low volume to the point that all but the general beat and melody is muffled, reassuring the Ariacorean in question that people are there but providing little detail. An individual is then able to send a general 'call' into the surrounding area (often a request for information), or to deliberately search for a familiar mind to send a specific, private message to.
Messages are sent and received rapidly, and generally do not consist of words. Emotions, images, and general concepts are woven together, forming 'songs' and 'dances.' Songs are distinguished by being primarily emotion-heavy, such as a sad Ariacorean calling out for someone to comfort them, while dances are based around practical information, such as asking for directions. Components of songs are called 'notes,' while components of dances are referred to as 'steps.'
Messages, however, are rarely purely one or the other, an Ariacorean's mood tinting their dance with song notes or the reasons for their current emotion adding dance steps to their song. The description is merely for what the main purpose is.
Each individual Airacorean has a specific telepathic range around themselves. Those currently within an individual's range will be easy to detect and locate, giving them good idea of where the other is relative to them. Songs and dances will be crystal clear when sent between two Airacorean who are both within the range of the other. When one is in range of the other but not vice-versa, such as a commoner close enough to be in a royal's much larger range but too far away for the royal to be in theirs, the commoner will not be able to locate the royal beyond vague generalities, and songs and dances sent to them by the royal may come through missing notes and steps if they are too complex. The royal, however, will still know where the commoner is and get their messages loud and clear.
Thanks to these limited ranges, communicating over long distances tends to turn into a game of telephone between individuals along the route between them unless the ones seeking to speak make use of verbal speech over actual telephones, or write letters.
The exact range of an individual varies primarily on birth caste, with royals having a much wider one than the commoners. Cadence, being a soldier, has a range that would cover Manta Carlos City if she herself were in it, or the same level of Starlight Observation Station she was currently standing in, but not the whole island or station.
Telepathic isolation sets off extremely strong instinctive urges to establish territory and seek out mates, causing Ariacorean in mixed-species areas to clump together if it all possible, often to the point of sharing living areas. Soldiers, like Cadence, will experience wild mood swings when cut off from all, or even most, contact, while workers and medics suffer from extreme anxiety and panic, frequently displaying symptoms of PTSD after the fact. Royals and magi tend toward depressive episodes and insomnia.
Because of this heavy dependency on the hive mind, Ariacorean are very susceptible to outside manipulation, but also very aware of it. They can't block a foreign telepath from making contact with their mind, even if they wanted to, but there is no such thing as avoiding detection no matter how subtle the power. Anyone who would normally struggle to read or manipulate a mind will find Cadence's laughably easy to do such a thing to, but she will know that the attempt is happening and where it's coming from.
Biography:
So, how does a telepathic alien with a passion for high technology end up way out in Terran space teaching Earthlings about her people? Well, being the offspring of a queen and prince certainly helped. While not a royal herself, she was born to a clutch between a queen of Cobalt and prince of Crimson, her and her siblings a symbol of unity between the greater hives. So, needless to say, she had a bit of a luxurious upbringing, with an expectation that the hatchlings would grow to do great things.
Cadence proved to be a soldier, through and through, but not in the sense that the outsiders who had once given the caste such a name would have expected. Soldier caste were the explorers, scouts, hunters, the ones who struck out into the unknown and brought knowledge and resources back to the hive. In wartime, she likely would have been military, but now, in a time when the Empire had abandoned aggressive expansion in favour of cooperation with other species, she turned her attention to science, enthralled by the opportunity for discovery and innovation.
Still, it was unlikely that Cadence would have left the Empire's borders for some time if not for what happened when she was fifteen, the day she met the being who would become her best friend. She'd been taking a mechanic job on a colony world on the fringes of Imperial space, when a strange object crash-landed outside of the garage. It proved to be a primitive space probe, and Cadence soon realized that it was equipped with an Artificial Intelligence, but one who had no way to communicate with the hardware so heavily damaged by the crash.
With hours of frantic work, she transferred the poor thing to her own tech and did her best to introduce code that would allow them to speak and understand verbal Imperial. Once communication was established, they spoke at length, Cadence doing her best to calm the confused AI and figure out where the probe had come from. The answer shocked her: Apparently, it had come from the strange little planet of Earth, having long been dismissed by the Empire as a backwater world, little more than a glorified zoo.
And so began Cadence's trip to Earth. She pulled the strings her family had provided to her until they threatened to break. A map, a ship, and a crew were assembled by stubbornness backed with wealth, and they took off for Terran space. Luckily, they knew enough regarding where to land without terrifying the populace, and Cadence's first steps on Earth were on Manta Carlos; the young soldier was instantly bombarded by the wildly varied populace and their chaotic ways, and found herself with an odd, mildly-horrified fascination.
The AI, whom Cadence had nicknamed 'Tempo,' however, soon realized that this wasn't really the home they'd been intended to report back to. They were from Earth, but clearly not this one. They were from a different place on the timeline, or perhaps an alternate version entirely, and something out there in space had pulled them to...here. With this revelation, Cadence offered to bring Tempo back to the Empire, even to vouch for them being granted full citizenship, and they agreed.
Well, after the crew got a much-needed bit of shore leave and Cadence got to learn a few of the baffling aspects of Earth culture firsthand. Like who 'Captain Kirk' was and why her presence would result in someone invoking the name. She walked away from the encounter mostly thinking that humans were weird. Kind of cute, maybe, but definitely weird.
Once settled back home, Cadence and Tempo went back to work, together, but they never quite stopped paying attention to news about Earth, what of it there was. The progress on their space station was of particular interest to Cadence, and as it neared completion, she chose to send a message out, prefaced with a cheery, "Remember me?" To her, if Earth was really going to be making themselves part of the galactic community, someone clearly needed to teach them about the glory of the Ariacorean Empire.
Besides, there were surely going to be AIs hanging around the station, and, no offense, but they were going to need someone who really knew their way around sapient technology keeping an eye on things. Tempo's Earth and this Earth may have technically been different, but she still wasn't sure if she trusted the Earthlings to know what they were doing.
And, you know, if she happened to lay the groundwork for a Ariacorean hive to be established on Earth, that would certainly prove that everybody had been right about her clutch being destined for greatness. She just needed to deal with the silence long enough to find a home fit for a queen...
Additional Information:
- 'Ariacorean' is based on combination of the words aria ("elaborate melody sung solo with accompaniment") and terpischorean ("pertaining to dancing").
-The word 'Ariacorean' can refer to Cadence's species and any citizen of the Ariacorean Empire, usually with their species stated afterward for clarification if need be. AIs are also full citizens of the Empire alongside biological beings. Power in the Empire is split between the 'greater hives' (more or less like countries) of Hive Cobalt, Hive Crimson, Hive Viridian, and Hive Ash, but they work together to show a united face to the galaxy.
-Cadence has ten clutch-siblings: Symphony (queen caste), Adagio (magi caste), Ballad (medic caste), Legato (worker caste), Staccato (medic caste), Downbeat (soldier caste), Melody (medic caste), Harmony (soldier caste), Glissade (worker caste), and Lyric (worker caste). She also has eighteen older half-siblings from the two clutches her mother had before them, and nine younger half-siblings from the clutch after. She has half-siblings through her father, too, but hasn't tracked down who they all are yet.
