Boraxus

Significant Sentient Population

27 billion?

Allegiance

Boraxian

Hazards

Defense system will fire at alien craft in sector. Be wary of space faring Boraxians, physically they look similar to standard Boraxians, but are in fact very different and violently psychotic.

System Information

There is one naturally life bearing planet in this sector of 7 planets and a young yellow giant sun. Mostly covered by calm, shallow oceans(possessing a very high oxygen content) it hangs like a golden orb against the black background of space. The planet is rich in minerals and the planetary crust has abnormally high percentages of platinum, titanium and uranium. The Uranium is particularly important because the one thing the planet lacks is a good supply of fossil fuels and without it advanced civilization would most likely not have been able to exist at all.

Biology

The Boraxian web of life is truly unique. To the untrained eye, Boraxian biology appears to break all the rules. Species are supposed to compete in a vicious game of survival of the fittest thus ensuring evolution takes place and the optimal genome is produced, but on Boraxus there is simply no competition at all on the entire planet between any species or any individual members of a species. All life appears to live in perfect harmony with absolutely zero competition.

This puzzled foreign scientists for some time, but the answer when it arrived was simple and very surprising. Initially, when DNA samples from various 'species' had been compared and found to be the same, it had been assumed that there had been some error and the samples had been cross contaminated. In actual fact there was no error and the differing 'species' were all the SAME species, simply at varying life stages with the particular form being determined by gene expression.

It is difficult to say where life really begins or ends for a Boraxian; indeed it is difficult to say exactly what a Boraxian even is. Generally, a Boraxian will stay in their particular 'form' be it grass, a beetle, a cell or a sentient being, until such time as it 'dies' whereby genetic triggers are pulled and the surviving cells will adapt and change into an appropriate new 'form'. In emergencies it is possible to trigger the genetic changes without the need for 'death' but such changes are extremely rare, beyond conscious control and only occurring if the environmental circumstances are just right.

To be totally accurate the term Boraxian applies to anything that possesses the DNA of the species, unfortunately that means a Boraxian is anything from a cell to a complex bipedal type creature and the population of the planet would be the number of individual DNA strands. To make things easier, the Galactic Council just puts it all in the "too hard" basket and pretends Boraxian biology is just like everything else and counts only the collections of cells that are capable of conducting a meaningful conversation as being "Boraxian". Generally these particular 'forms' are in the shape of salamander like amphibious creatures, usually living in technologically amazing undersea cities in the shallower parts of the ocean and warm lakes that cover the planet. But may also be occasionally found occupying small land based towns on the few continents that exist.

This "Boraxian" resembles a giant yellow salamander, on average about 5 metres in length and standing around 80cm tall when on all fours. Although it walks on all four legs, its "feet" with 7 digits each, including 2 opposable thumbs are very dexterous and should more accurately be referred to as hands. In addition to its hands, the Boraxian possesses a massive and highly flexible tongue that can extend up to 2 metres. Forked 3 ways at the tip like a trident the Boraxian's tongue is its primary environmental manipulation device. The only time a Boraxian will not have its tongue extended is when it is angry, bored or tired. Communication for the Boraxian is not hampered because it is almost completely visual carried out via an ever moving frill bordering its head and a goatee like structure under the chin. In addition, it is capable of making squirting type sounds through its ears and nose, but this more limited form of communication is reserved more for land based communications (when the frill is hard to use) and / or swearing like a trooper.

Telling Boraxians apart can be exceptionally difficult. They are all of very similar size, gender, shape and colour (a lustrous golden hue) and the fact that they don't compete with each other means that none of them ever try to be 'individuals'. As such their personalities, hobbies, mannerisms and so forth are all pretty much the same. It's pretty safe to say that if you don't like one Boraxian chances are you don't like any Boraxians. The key to telling them apart lies in learning to recognize frill structure. No two Boraxians have the same Frills and to the Boraxian, the frill is essentially like a face. This doesn't make things much easier for most non Boraxians because the frills are too complex to remember and on land they are usually dried up and retracted. The only other way to tell them apart is to wear a special pair of filtering glasses allowing you to see things in the way a Boraxian sees them. Like this, their golden skin becomes a collage of colours with no two Boraxians having the same pattern.

Generally, a Boraxian prefers life under water because it is easier to move about. When swimming it will tuck its legs into grooves along its body and using its muscular tails propel itself leisurely through the water in a snake like manner. When not sleeping or moving, the Boraxian coils its tail like a spring and sits on it leaving its hands free. Boraxians struggle on land because movement requires walking which is slow and tedious and 'tail sitting' is a difficult procedure indeed. In combination with the fact that its lungs are not as well developed as its gills and frill communication is next to impossible, Boraxians only hang about on land when they absolutely must.

In terms of weaponry and bodily armour, the Boraxian has basically none because they have never been subject to competition and survival of the fittest. However that said, one solid thump from a Boraxian's tail is enough to kill most creatures and its tongue is also capable of constricting like a snake. Boraxians rarely kill any native life on their home planet because they are all of the same species, but when it comes to aliens, Darwinian behaviour rears its ugly head and Boraxians are as violent as the next race.

With the discovery of alien legions in space, old instincts stirred and some salamanders underwent phase change to a form that had not been seen on Boraxus for millions of years. They became warriors resembling Godzilla somewhat. Whilst obviously related to the salamander the warrior is amazingly more aggressive with changes to its biology that make it more suited to combat. The rear legs are much larger and powerful with a strong set of razor sharp talons on each powerful foot. Standing around 8 feet tall as they walk upright on these legs, the tail is shortened and armed with thousands of tiny barbs along its length, resembling saw teeth somewhat. The tail is deployed in a whip/retract manner against foes and easily rips them apart. Near the end if the tail, 5 sets of large poisoned spikes make life even less survivable for any victim of a tail whip.

The arms are also extended and are more muscular and whilst the hand like structure is the same, it is also equipped with a triple set of retractable, scythe like blades. But the primary biological weapon is the warrior's mouth. The tongue is a little shorter but nearly triple as strong and lined along the sides with a flexible flap, which when extended up becomes rigid. The edges of which are razor sharp. Capable of controlling its tongue to perfection, a Boraxian warrior can usually decapitate an enemy faster than you can blink. In addition, its mouth holds a nasty set of fangs and dual venom sacks in the roof of its mouth store a corrosive neurotoxin it may spit with pinpoint accuracy up to 10 metres.

Unlike the salamander, the warrior phase is equipped with strong, scale like armour from head to toe which being a shiny golden colour makes an impressive sight.

Perhaps the most deadly feature of the Boraxian warrior phase is the cerebral changes. Boraxian warriors speak a language and one language only, battle. Their minds are dangerously psychotic, and a constant discomfort afflicts them whenever they are not partaking in violence. Chemically they are addicted to it and suffer unbearable withdrawal symptoms during times of peace.

Government / Religion

The notion of 'government', a group of individuals making decisions for and leading others is distinctly unnatural for Boraxian life. It is used to functioning as a collective letting genetics take care of everything with no leadership required. However as civilization appeared amongst the 'salamanders' so too did the need for a little more direction to things. The planet is politically divided into provinces with each province operating as an independent communism. These communes operate under the loose guidance of a central council made up of representatives from each of the provinces. With no egos, competitiveness or concept of selfishness, the system operates incredibly well with almost zero corruption. Members of government are determined by no particular criteria with the positions able to be filled by any member of the population. A job in government is seen as no different to any other job and members rotate frequently.

The entire notion of religion is just flat out weird to a Boraxian.

Society / Behaviour

Boraxian society is essentially utopia, with no war, no competition and complete peace and harmony which is aided by the fact that there is no form of religion whatsoever. All life being of the same species there is no environmental destruction, 'biodiversity' (if you can call it that) is preserved, and environmental exploitation, where it must be done, is carried out in a sustainable way. No Boraxian damages any other form of Boraxian life for if it does so it is effectively damaging itself. But don't be fooled by the apparent peace and harmony. This behaviour only extends to Boraxians. Foreign species soon discover that the Boraxians are abnormally hostile and violent. It is suspected that the reason life evolved as it did on Boraxus was that the dominant species simply destroyed anything not of its own kind. Life survived because the dominant species effectively became ALL species.

There are no individuals as such in Boraxian culture. They are uniform in almost all regards with no one who stands out, no stars, no supergenius scientists etc. As such progress appears slow but due to amazingly consistency ends up being very fast indeed. All occupations are seen as equal from musician to rocket scientist or sand filterer to gill surgeon and individuals accept their role in life willingly. The structure of Boraxian society seems to be based mostly on instinct and whilst there is some thought and planning involved it is always instinct that comes first. If the Boraxian genome feels the urge to head into space, then Boraxian life will arrange itself and make the required scientific advances to make it so. In this case, it is the sentient salamanders that do most of the legwork with their society and culture being arranged to suit the net planetary biological drive.

When it comes to breeding behaviours, in the vast majority of "species" on Boraxus, there is no such thing as male or female and this is true of the sentient 'salamanders' too. Self fertilization is a purely instinctive process and Boraxians think absolutely nothing of it. There is no sexual competition and the live young (born one at a time with a gestation period of nearly 2 years) are cared for and raised by everyone.

Death is pretty much a non event for Boraxians, they don't fear it, and with no religion there is no concept of an afterlife. So meaningless is the concept of death to Boraxians, that until they started travelling in space they didn't even have a word for it in their language. Instead of 'death' they have a concept of what they call 'phase change' to describe the process of what happens on Boraxus.

The one thing a Boraxian DOES fear is being 'killed' away from home in the emptiness of space, because out there, away from the planet, 'phase change' is not possible, and death is very real. The most terrifying scenario to a Boraxian is to be killed alone in space with no one to take its remains back to the home world. This fear helps to explain why Boraxians were so reluctant to explore space even when they had the technology to do so.

War and the fear of death are often seen as the driving force behind research and development, but Boraxians are living proof that this is not always the case. With no conflict within their species, Boraxians focus primarily on academic pursuits and advance just as fast, if not faster than even the Krils. Throw war into the picture and Boraxians get the best of both worlds; developing and researching faster than anyone else.

The Path to Space

Whereas most civilizations tend to stall then leap, then stall then leap when it comes to technological progress, the Boraxian story is one of total clockwork, slow, steady and predictable development. As early as the 1930's the technology already existed on Boraxus for them to get into space, but they never felt the need to do so beyond launching satellites and a few mining craft. Boraxian life does not gamble with itself and with no concrete evidence of habitable planets being out there in space there was no need to die trying to find it.

All that changed when in 2128, the Krilgorian spacecraft "Jerky Sprunger III" piloted by ex 81103 leading man Loki Parry arrived unexpectedly in the sector and proceeded to land uninvited on the home planet terminating a sizeable chunk of the local Boraxian organism in the process with its engines. Unaccustomed to such violence, the sentient life stage of the Boraxian organism (the salamanders) kept their distance and watched, remaining out of sight, underwater.

Meanwhile, Loki his ego now reaching new levels proceeded to make another docudrama about his discovery of an entire habitable planet, pompously naming it Loki's World and sending home a constant stream of data.

The Boraxians continued to monitor events with growing distaste, recording and analysing the alien language. Within a few days, Boraxian scientists had deciphered enough to be truly shocked. This alien, possessed an ego that was out of control, totally self centred, vain and competitive he stood right in front of them violating all that it meant to be Boraxian. As they watched, the crew of the "Jerky Sprunger III" continued to cut down 'trees', light fires and alter their environment in order to make it more liveable for themselves, in the process committing what Boraxians consider to be mass murder. When the crew brought out the mining equipment and began drilling for minerals and fuels the Boraxians could watch no more and although unaccustomed to violence, they attacked.

At the time Loki was filming a 'documentary' about how fabulous he was and the automated hovercamera that was following him around as he did so recorded the final moments of the ill fated crew and its 81103 star captain. Out of nowhere, the natural environment around the Krilgorians seemed to rapidly animate and roll towards them in a seething mass. For no reason trees fell on unsuspecting Krils, basking in the sun, the grasses formed into rope like structures and wrapped themselves around the screaming Loki. The last thing the camera recorded was a large yellow salamander type creature appearing to inspect it before its large forked tongue whipped out and terminated the transmission.

With the crew out of the way, the Boraxians set about meticulously dismantling the "Jerky Sprunger III" learning the function of every component piece by piece. In doing so they discovered the information contained within the NavComm and learned of all the known sectors in space, how to get there and where the habited planets were.

Armed with this new knowledge instincts that had lain dormant for millions of years began to awaken. The Boraxian organism found itself with new and yet strangely familiar desires to expand, dominate, assimilate and destroy. In response to these desires the Boraxian race immediately turned its attention towards space.

With the bulk of the required technology already developed and the little required knowledge that was left right in front of them in the form of Loki's spacecraft, in just 6 short months, the Boraxians had begun assembling their first attack fleet. A small segment of the 'salamander' population began undergoing phase change in order to prepare them for life in space. These new warriors became the pilots of the new ships and by the year 2133 the first Boraxian fleet was ready to jump.

Fighting Characteristics

Boraxian space combat pilots, with variations in gene expression accordingly have slightly different fighting characteristics to what might be expected.

Life on Boraxus may live in almost perfect peace and harmony but the non violent tendencies only extend to members of their own species. Non Boraxians, no matter what species are seen in what is rather a negative light by Boraxians who will attack viciously the first chance they get.

Combat Boraxians have a slightly reduced fear of death in space, but it has not been possible to entirely remove the instinctive fear attached with the notion of not being able to undergo a phase change back on the homeworld. As such, even though much braver than the standard Boraxian 'salamander', the combat pilot will very rarely right to the death, but will rather run or cloak before it gets that bad. That said, where repairships are present and collecting scrap, then Boraxians will fight to the 'death' with no fear due to the fact that the scrap collected by a friendly repairer will include their remains and will be returned to the homeworld for them to undergo phase change.

Generally Boraxians swarm like insects and are pretty much all the same, but in space, individuality is often essential to survival. The variant salamanders are much more individualistic than their cousins but will still swarm more often than not. Unfortunately, individualism is still a fairly new concept to Boraxians and when they scatter they often do it rather unsuccessfully. They are most dangerous and effective when they swarm.

All Boraxians will fight like crazy to defend their homeworld and do so without any fear of death. Any attack on the home planet will usually send Boraxian pilots home in a murderous rage where they will fight with everything they've got until the aggressors are dead or running. Boraxians aren't afraid to die around the homeworld because there is an excellent chance they will be able to phase change when their remains are collected and with every single bomb dropped on the planet being analogous to a personal attack for every single Boraxian pilot, they take it very personally and will not leave in a hurry.