Created Friday 02 November 2012
/ Original this page was the Pets page, but then I relaized I should have realized long ago that I should give the Blattids two pets. /
"The tiger heart that pants beneath" -- Melville
They thirst for war. Their whacked-out religion, whatever it is, glorifies battle and the triviality and anyone's death in it on high.
Why raptors?
For millions of years, a stuggle on earth has been waged between the diapsids and synapsids. The diapsid strategy is that of sibling rivalry in the nest and efficient respiration / adaptable meatoblism. That of synapsids, I do see, as social supoprt and investment of a fast metabolism on adaptivity of behavior. In the long run, I think the diapsids are more resilient, but I hope the syanpsids can evolve for a less Darwinian world.
The Raptors, slaves to the Blattids, are diapsids.
Gee, it's been so long sionce I'ce written about these "pets" that I didn't even think to not look for the file labelel "Raptors" not pets.
Anyway, it just turns out that raptors are deadly poisonous to us. That happens sometimes---more often than you'd think---that the biochemsitry (there are that many elements, going with carbon is not a weird bet) of the two alien races just don't work together, and one biochemsityr kills the other.
So the weapons. Ragged edge, as far beyond melee as they can, but that's more often a wish than an aspiration. They're melle weapons, just you start melee even before you can see each other. Ragged so it more easily infects you with a wound that needs quickly to be treated. Ragged because on the fly, you use yourself (or more often your dead and dying comrads) to put inftectious peices of yourself on the weapon.
(Remember--and this is as good as any a place to say it to make sure I don't think about so much I think I must've said it but didn't--the Human-Blattid war is a big part of the opera (Act 2 I'd say), but not the only. Well, it's the "soft closing" of the opera because I do still think about humans post Really Big Space Monster. But I also did say that I will not decide who wins it. I will strategize both sides, but make still so there is a culminating moment when I say who wins. And decide whowins with a flip of a coin. And humans are heads.
Even small traces are poinsonous, you see, but a larger does actually prevents antidotes from working. That wound cannot heal. Unless you can dig enough of that infection out of the wound in time---any wya you can---you will die. It was engineered (when it was found by luck) to be a poison you cannot stop.
They are raptors whose very beings are toxic to us.
But they fight like gulls. They'll gate into a region and just do their darnedest to survive there by whatever means necessary. And all the while doing their best to harry us. And if it just so happens that they find a way (really any way) to survive off of us while htey're here, well then the battle has begun to be won.
It is possible for one species from an other world to be highly toxic to species of a different world, of course. To have biochecmistries just similar enough to really fuck with other worlds.
But the Blattids did breed them to be extra likely to be toxic to other worlds. And I think they also just happen to be very hyperallergenic to use. Even having briefly passed by weeks ago still makes an area too hazardous for exposed flesh. Not fatally, but really really itchy.
How about Buzzkills.
So the humans first noticed their vulture-like qualities. No beaks, though. It's hard to make beaks look any better than The Dark Crystal did.
A mandible that resembles a hooked beak in profile, but is instead a proboscis that folds out like wings. It's lined inside with rasping/grabbing teeth (really, like a shark's) and retract back onto a tongue that grinds back and forth on ths bed of teeth; outward pushes grind the food; inward pulls drag it to a tooth-lined throat---kinda a crop. So, the probsicis reaches out, scoops/rips food, and brings it back to the "mouth"/tongue and then serves as a pestle for the mortor of the tongue. All implying that their food is fibrous and fleshy---not something to be sliced off with incisors but ripped and grabbed.
They're bilaterally symmetrical. Their form is lanky and they move with an akward, loping gate. Their heads bob a bit as they walk, but more their necks sway under them. They are covered in a pale greyish "plumage" that is really more like dreads---cords of "hair" that is waxy and lined with tiny body-facing spines. Their undercoat is a forest of small anemone-like tenticles that eat body parasites and direct dirt towards their cloca/anus where it is molded into waxy casings/bubbles that they fill with their excrement before dropping them.
The waxy, stringy plummage on their arms (all six) is rather long, and they do indeed fan them out in threat displays that show striking patterns of black and red (they don't see higher-frequency colors well at all).
They have three pairs of "arms," but only one pair---the lowest pair---is long enough to operate large euipment. The middle pair is smallish and nearly freely jointed; these they use quite dextrously to prepare things to pass to their longest pair. The smallest pair is neareset their head and used nearly like mandibles and antennae; they can sense changes in air pressure, temperature, and low-frequency sounds with them (all appendages, really, but these are much more sensitive).
They hear higher frequencies through stretches of skind at the bases of each of their limbs. A lot like the "ears" of many spider species, these also detect vibrations and otherwise aren't great at detecting sounds---a bit worse than humans at detecting changes in pitch, etc. but better at sensing motion even fairly far (a dozen or so yards).
The proboscis has several sets of holes to smell and the edges are lined with sensors that detect electricity (like a T rex or shark). They have good sense of smell (near that of a cat), but of limited range since they have to exhale upon things to smell them well. Still, they can use their senses of smell & magnetism/electricity to navigate and find things (and tell the difference between living, robot, & inanimate) a handful of years away (and, of course, in the dark).
They have five eyes: A large, binocular pair in front a lot like a cat's. They can see well in the dark, have limited color detection, but can sense movement very well. A smaller, binocular set is set near the back of their head; these are also like a cat's, but with very bad acuity: They're mostly just to detect motion & light changes over a wide field to their rear. The final eye is smaller and set between and a bit below the two large ones in front; this one detects heat and very low levels of light in front; its range is pretty good (~100 yards) but with little acuity.
Their legs are long, and they're good runners. Better at sprinting & agility, though, they could be outrun by humans in a marathon.
They have a fan-like tail (actually a pair of rather stiff tails covered by a fan of their dread-like plummage) they use for balance. The plummage on their tails has large spines that don't point towards their body as much. A ridge of spines also rus along the top of both tails and onto their rumps before joining together and diminishing towards the middle of their backs (right between the middle pair of arms).
They communicate auditorally through clicks, rasps, and rumbles as well as through odors. Some of the smells are very volatile and evaporate quickly while others tend to cling to the waxy film on their plummage. Their smell does thus vary, but they tend to smell acrid and metalic with a lingering mushroomy/dank smell that can linger for hours. Fear/alarm smells like persimminons and anise; anger like gunpowder or copper; contentment like composting grass.
They don't wear full sets of clothes, but instead straps for carryiung, plates for armor, and usually a nearly mucousy film for space suits / harsh environments.
They enjoy (or well, sure seem to get something out of) rolling around on the corpses of those they killed at least in part to cover themselves in their smell. They're also pretty indiscriminant in deciding who they themselves killed and who just happened to die around them, so after any battle, they'll invest non-negligible time and resources to gather up the fallen (dead and wounded) and all surviving Buzzkills will collectively roll around on them in hissing orgies.
O.K., whatever they looked like, they must be bigger than we. Diapsids nearly always were, so these will be, too.
And surely beaked. Even Lisowicia were beaked. Beaks just work well---well enough without the need for all that tooth stuff.
They clip short swaths of their waxing plummage in part for fashion and in part for function. This gives them sections on the bodies with short "barbs" sticking out. When they roll on the carcasses of their fallen foes, these barbs catch and hold the gore, letting them carrying on them into future battles. And yeah, even for days.
Blattids domesticated Buzzkills (hm, still getting used to that as a name for them) in large part for loyality. But that gets tested in times like war---and especially Fires. And so, yes, there are Buzzkills that will renege on their "deal" to befend the Blattids with their lives---and abjectly lived lives. The Blattids see the need to control and cull these renegades, and there are more renegades early in a Fire (since that disloyalty can build up in the "gene" pool during times of peace without as dire consequences). So, among the first encounters humans have with Blattids is squads of them culling (and hiring others to cull) renegade Buzzkills, leading to long-term confusion among humans (not like that's evern been a rare thing anyway) about the relationship between Buzzkills and Blattids.
Because even dogs keep flexible bonds with us. They can pretty easily jump to a new human . . . or go feral. I mean sorry, but it's a pretty dumb animal that totally throw their future in with humans. Ain't no one seen a reason yet to think we're sticking around for long. We look like a pretty rock-brained bunch heading like a comet to blwo up on an otherwise pretty sweet planet.
Buzzkills are kinda lazy. They don't so much lach endurance as drive. A lethal weakness in some cases. They are ironically great at attacks and even persistent raids, but they're really slow to establish a strong, productive industry in-system. You've got to send Blattids to kick them along if you need Buzzkills to step on it.