Plantis
Race Name (human coloquial): Plantis
Race Name (proper): Child of Eden (Eideen)
A.K.A.: ‘bush brains’, Vinelings
Homeworld: Eideen
Tech Level: High
Galactic Distribution: Widely distributed but not common.
Appearance: Plantis are most basically a network of interconnect, movable, leaf-covered vines with two or three optical orbs. Their appearance changes with the stages of their life. In the first stage, infancy, they remain rooted and look similar to an Earth plant but with stems and leaves that can move faster than their Earth counterparts. They’ll grow up to a foot tall at this stage.
At the ‘toddler’ stage, they will uproot and move to follow the sun, stepping out of shadows to optimal lighting condition, to a limited degree. Their vines are not strong enough to hold a form so they merely slither or inch along the ground until rooted when they stand again. They’ll grow up to three feet tall at this stage.
At the ‘young adult’ stage they are now strong enough to hold a form and will look like a roughly bipedal or tripedal being at this stage, ‘walking’ on legs and grasping with ‘arms’. This is the best known stage as they will travel at this stage and most plantis you’d meet in the galaxy are at this stage of their lives. Their vines are still green, quite flexible and quick to move. Their speech is only a little slower than other races. In most respects, this is a stage where they are most compatible with other races and more adventurous and willing to travel. They will be from 3′ to 9′ tall in this stage which lasts several decades.
In the ‘mature adult’ stage, their vines, slowly over the course of decades, begins to brown, and stiffen, their speech slows, and their leaves begin to brown. They prefer their own homeworlds at this stage but on occasion will travel when required. They will be from 10′-15′ tall in this stage which lasts several decades.
In the ‘senior’ stage, they continue to harden, becoming ever less mobile, slower in speech, such that even young plantis are impatient listening to them, and their leaves begin to fall from their bodies, remaining only at their ‘heads and arms’. They will be from 16′-20′ tall in this stage which lasts several decades.
In their final ‘rest’ stage, they lose the ability to move, or even talk, remaining permanently rooted to one spot with leaves only at their tops, with hard, deep brown, thick intertwined vines forming a ‘trunk’ and looking much like a tree on Earth. They will be from 21′-30′ tall in this stage which can last up to a century. Humans often consider this a fate worse than death, but plantis do not have this perspective. Indeed, while plantis in this stage can no longer engage in the physical world, it is believed they grow ever more able to commune with the Essense (the very life-force of the galaxy and creator of all life) and eventually become one with the Essence, leaving the physical plain entirely.
Good fortune and ‘miracles’ are often attributed to those in ‘rest’ bending the Essence to the needs of the Plantis.
Traits: Being a network of stiff, moving, ‘vines’ or ‘roots’ plantis are able to assume a wide variety of forms. They most commonly assume a humanoid form as this is a commonly acceptable form among other races and also practical. Plantis do not have hands or fingers but can use as many root-tips as needed to manipulate objects.
Their vine/roots of an adult plantis are quite durable and they are able to restrain other races with them, including mcmacazorkians if they’re mature enough and can get enough vines wrapped around them.
They can also lose parts of themselves as they will regrow them over time, although it is still traumatic at the time. The most sensitive part of a plantis are their optical orbs – free-floating balls at the end of some roots that they use to see and hear the world around them.
Plantis are one of the races best suited to space travel, aside from crystalonians, as they only require a bed of soil to ‘root/sleep’ in and sufficient light and water. No food, excretion or other such considerations. They are also able to ‘rest’ for looong periods, up to months at a time, in a dormant state without boredom or mental strain setting in.
History: Plantis are a highly intelligent races but one that had little use for advanced technology in their initial development. They were peaceful nomads who seldom had conflicts with their own kind and being the most intelligent race on Eideen, could also devise ways to ensure they had sufficient light, even on a densely populated world where everything is vying for that same sunlight.
This changed when they were visited by the star-faring porcupinians. Realizing they had another intelligent race around, they tried to make friendly contact, but the porcupinians only viewed them as more hostile native life (and not intelligent) and set them ablaze with blaster fire. After that initial porcupinian exploratory mission left the plantis, for the first time, organized themselves against a threat they’d never known before and the need to themselves be able to take to the skies to defend themselves.
It would be centuries before the porcupinians would revisit the plantis homeworld and by then, they have developed rudimentary space travel themselves. The porcupinians at this time tried to make peaceful communications but without any commonality at all and deep distrust, were unsuccessful. The plantis who had begun to think the old stories were just myth were galvanized to redoubled their efforts to be space-faring.
In the following centuries the plantis would begin traveling to other worlds, come into contact and conflict with the tiwangese (a race that was aggressively looking to find a suitable replacement to their dying homeworld and who ate plant-matter (barbaric!)) and contact and alliance with the crystalonians.
Crystalonians shared many traits with the plantis; non-aggressive, light-converters, shape-shifting, and driven to advanced technology out of fear of the porcupinians. When the crystalonians and porcupinians went to war, the plantis were drawn in by their alliance and in turn this drew the tiwangese into this now galactic conflict. Soon the xylanterians would ally with the porcupinians, seeking a partner in their own war with the wadring empire and the Great Millennial War began in earnest with the plantis/crystalonians/wadrings (all peaceful shape-shifters) on one side and the porcupinians/xylantarians/tiwangese (all imperialist of set forms) on the other. Since none of these races had developed any true wrap speeds, this was an extremely slow war, with conflicts sometimes decades or even centuries apart, but when they happened, they were often devastating. During the war all these races continued to expand their galactic influence seeking resources, knowledge and potential allies (or potential enemies). They came into contact with other races, most of which remained uninvolved or like the crabi that sold arms and info to all sides, only involved indirectly.
At some point, the plantis successfully rerouted a massive asteroid toward the homeworld of the tiwangese – aimed directly at a major civilized area and cloaked it so it wouldn’t be seen, but it’d be over two hundred years before it’d arrive.
Their plan worked, the Tiwangese spotted it too late, and were further unprepared for it’s sudden acceleration as plantis rockets fired as it neared Tiwang. On the plantis homeworld millions gathered to watch their impending victory unfold. However, the planet tiwang was not a typical planet, it’s centre had cooled, it’s crust cracked with immense fissures (that the tiwangese lived in), and had become brittle. The comet didn’t just destroy a major metropolitan area, it shattered the world completely. A billion tiwangese died.
To the viewing plantis, who cherished all plant-life life, the death told they caused was into the quadrillions. They had become the monsters that they had so long build and fought to be protected from.
This caused a massive shift in the plantis society, and en masse they renounced the war and turned to what had up until then only been a fledgling, fringe religion based on a belief on one all-encompassing galactic Essence. They did everything they could to protect and aid the remaining tiwangese (now limited to the few thousand living aboard spaceships) and to end the war. Seeing the devastation the war had brought, and had been bringing, the other races agreed to a truth, and then once the ‘blue fuzzies’ (a creature capable of true telepathic communication between all races) were discovered, they helped bring in an age of understanding, compassion and ultimately, the foundation of the Galactic Federation.
The plantis, along with their allies and former enemies became the founding races of the federation and then invited in the other races that had become known throughout all space (eufonians, mcmacazorkians, crabi, plactoris, dzillartons, quarrins) to join in as well.
Ever since this time, the faith-based plantis have acted as the voice of compassion and peace throughout the galaxy. Now seeing themselves as not just defenders of plant-type life, but of all life in the galaxy, as all life, is a part of the Essence in their belief.
In recent time, the plantis have sponsored and ‘raised’ the cetacean race into the galactic federation, helping them to achieve independence from their environment, become technologically advanced and become full members, even as their planet cousins – humans – initially rejected being a part. The plantis, of course, have also taught the cetaceans their beliefs, which cetaceans readily adopted.