User:Vivaporius/Sandbox/Veskoya/I

Culture

• Military service is mandatory for all members of society regardless of age, sex, or social status. The primary role of military service was to man the perimeters of settlements throughout the land to protect the inhabitants from hostile flora and fauna, serve as manpower to repair and maintain defenses damaged by the environment, and prevent rival states from pillaging lands for their resources due to the difficulty of acquiring them in the wild.
• All flora and fauna are deemed hostile to sentient life; all fauna are either carnivorous or incredibly dangerous to hunt or interact with for the Veskoyans. The flora grows rapidly and aggressive destroys anything in its path, growing over and taking root in any surface that it comes into contact with. Military personnel typically spend their time assisting civilians in burning these plants to prevent them from over-runing entire sections of a city.
• Agriculture for the majority of Veskoyan history was too difficult to maintain, due to the hostility of wildlife in the region, and the weed-like nature of most plant-life in its competition for resources. Only once viable herbicides and culling techniques were developed did Veskoya witness an agricultural revolution that gave birth to the growth of an urban civilization and polities.
• The Veskoyans are a naturally distrustful species due to their origins, seeking to establish control over their surroundings as quickly as possible for their own safety and peace of mind. Consequently, they despise anything that they cannot control or understand out of fear of the unknown, and will actively undermine institutions that they believe do not suit their needs and those of their people.
• Veskoyan society is extremely hierarchical as a direct result of their origins and need to maintain an organized society that could withstand the dangers of their environment. Warfare over limited resources, mass famines, ecological disasters, and frequent pandemics, all contributed to the political and social instability that had been experienced throughout the majority of Veskoyan history. Extraordinarily totalitarian governments arose from these disasters, becoming the normal and preferred form of government of the Veskoyans for their ability to impose order on society and the surrounding environment, and for the air of predictability they brought as a consequence.
• Veskoyans do not challenge or question their leaders, granting the state in a semi-divine status that the species regards as having been given to them by their god as a way of saving them from near destruction by their homeland. Loyalty within society is structured as follows: the state, community, family, and self.
• Because of their fear of the unknown and the potential dangers that could afflict them, the Veskoyans are an aggressively inquisitive species which delves into every possible science to understand nature and how to control it. Because of these interests and knowledge of the space surrounding their homeworld, the Veskoyans have made it a priority to go to other worlds and star systems to establish direct control over the bubble of space around them, and control or mitigate any cosmic phenomenon that could threaten the Veskoyans. Any alien races are destroyed or enslaved, and star-lifting technologies used to stabilize hazardous stars within the immediate vicinity of the Veskoyan home system.
• The arts are virtually unknown to the Veskoyans, as the constant dangers of their homeworld made focusing on philosophical or artistic pursuits impractical. Buildings are built to broadcast fear and permanence to others, usually with the goal of highlighting that the alliance of families in the area are just as dangerous as the flora and fauna which surround them. The visage of spiders and teeth are the most commonly used for this purpose, primarily due to the stealthy and sudden nature of attacks from the giant spiders which inhabit the vast jungles of the Veskoyan homeworld, and their omnipresent nature within all major urban centers of the planet.

Reproduction

• Hundreds of fertilized eggs are produced within the male body, where they remain within a dormant state; these are released into a female where they are enter into an active state and begin to grow rapidly within the womb; after a period of time, these eggs are released from the female into a safe area to grow the rest of the way before hatching. The purpose of having the male produce the eggs rather than the females is to create as much redundancy as possible within the species reproductive cycle. If a male is killed, at least some of the eggs can be extracted from his body into a female and thus allow them to grow even after the death of their father. As long as a single male survives, the species can bounce back from near-extinction.
• This is an r-selected breeding method due to the hostile nature of the Veskoyan homeworld; only a handful of the male's offspring will survive long enough to hatch and grow to maturity; the primary role of the female is to hold onto the eggs long enough to move them into an area of relative safety, lay them, and then work together with other females to protect them from predators and other females seeking to replenish their group's numbers. Females possess phallic ovipositors to transfer the eggs from one female to another when in danger or if their incapable of carrying them to term. This process can be repeated as often as necessary until the eggs grow too large to transfer to another female and must be laid outside of the body.
• Males make up about 1-3% of the total population, primarily as a method of population control and to prevent too many offspring from being spawned at once and placing too much pressure on the limited resources of the planet; wars have been fought over males by large armies of females seeking to establish dominance over one another and secure as much land and resources for themselves and their families. Because of the manner in which the Veskoyans reproduce, the species has no concept of mothers or motherhood, as any female can transfer the male's eggs to another female as a defensive mechanism and do so frequently for the safety of the family, rendering the role of a mother inconsequential. In logical terms, it would be too difficult to keep track of who held which eggs for which period of time, or who had a greater role in carrying the eggs, and the eggs themselves can be transferred in whole or in part, meaning that multiple females can carry different amounts of eggs from the same breeding period, meaning anyone can be a "mother" at any point in time for any reason depending on the outlook. Instead, the Veskoyans simply discard the role and give all status of parentage to the male who spawned the offspring originally as a single identifiable point of linage.
• Wars between Veskoyan states traditionally known as "vendettas", as the wars are sparked largely over familial, non-political issues, typically to seize a male to reproduce with him, or over land and resources vital to the survival of one group of families. Targeting egg hatcheries was another major resource to start such vendettas; the goal would be to kill as many of the offspring of a rival family to prevent them from growing too large and thus requiring additional resources within the surrounding region, placing pressure on the other families and preventing them from surviving in the hostile environment of their homeworld.
• Sexual violence is commonplace throughout Veskoyan society, mainly as a means for females to establish dominance over one. The seminal fluid of the females is used for the passage of eggs from the body is naturally caustic (as with most bodily fluids of life on the planet), a trait with is nullified by the chemicals present within the amniotic fluids of the eggs. Without the presence of the eggs, this seminal fluid is can inflict serious chemical burns upon any individual exposed to them, and thus serve as a method of establishing dominance over other rival females.