Lesser species

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This is a catalog of species that do not have a noticeable effect on the galaxy. Many of them have not even entered space age yet and are unaware of the existence of other civilizations, but nevertheless, they are interesting enough to be mentioned.

Note: "lesser" in this context means the species' widespreadness and influence, not implication of inferiority.

Humans

Siluran

The Silurans were one of the first civilizations contacted by the Raharrs after reaching the Space Age. At the time of contact, they were in a pre-industrial stage of development. The raharrs planned to help the Silurans technologically and scientifically by improving the quality of life and spurring the scientific development of the planet. However, the culture shock of their arrival had the opposite effect - panic, crime, riots, and famine spread across the planet, leading to several wars and epidemics. In an attempt to somehow fix the chaos, the raharrs eventually overtook the local governments in an attempt to take control of the situation, which subsequently escalated into a full-fledged occupation. This situation lasted a considerable amount of time, with the Silurans losing much of their own culture and being replaced en masse with raharrian culture as a result. The awareness of this situation led to an outbreak of aggressive, nationalistic, and technophobic sentiments among the population. Eventually, around 80 years after initial contact, the raharrs recognized the problem, leaving the planet voluntarily and handing over power to local representatives. Technophobic sentiments among the planet also reached its peak at this point, so the raharrians were also told to remove all of their technology from the planet as well. The Siluran civilization returned to its pre-industrial state. Technophobic and anti-intellectual sentiments have since evolved into a new cultural paradigm bordering on religiosity, which has almost stopped the technological development of the civilization, although observers from the Alliance note that at the current moment, this philosophy has begun to decline and may no longer be dominant in the next century or two. At the next Alliance meeting, the original version of the Contact Directives was submitted and adopted to prevent another incident like this.

Vainurs

The Vainur Directive is one of the civilizations that is not part of the Alliance. An attempt was made to offer the Vainurs a place in it after their discovery, but the Vainurs rejected the proposal and established hostile neutrality, stating that the true race has nothing to do in the community of intelligent animals. Nevertheless, the Alliance allowed the Vainur ships to move freely through their territory because, despite the aggressive statements, the Vainurs never showed open aggression. It seemed that Vainurs were satisfied, and they began to conduct moderately limited trade deals. However, attacks and kidnappings soon began to take place throughout the Alliance. As it turned out later, the Vainurs were extremely interested in the ability of the raharrs to assimilate any organic matter and poisons, so they began to hunt them for the purpose of extracting and processing their intestines. In addition, they were anatomically interested in not only the raharrs, but also other species as well. By the time the true motives and culprits were revealed, the total number of deaths reached several million. In response to the indignation of the Alliance, the Vainurs, in spite of the quantitative and qualitative superiority of the Alliance, openly declared war. Following this, the Alliance organized a punitive action, destroying all Directive ships and deporting all Vainurs to their homeworld. A blockade was imposed on the planet and the Vainurs were forbidden to have any kind of space fleet, although they were allowed to leave the planet only if they had a special visa. A vote was also held, the theme of which was the invasion of Vainur itself and the forced change of the form of government, but the necessary number of votes “for” was not received. Afterwards, the Vainur Directive cut off all ties with the Alliance and refused all offers of material assistance. They also sent a warning that "any nonhuman who set foot on the holy lands of Vainur will be immediately killed." Since then, the planet has remained isolated, remaining faithful to its warning and firing on any ship descending into the lower atmosphere.


Alnus Thinkers

An unusual and only example of a flora consciousness. Thinkers originate from the planet Alnus II, and were unintentionally discovered by Sashli'sftonodo. The first time after landing on the planet and the subsequent formation of a colony, no one even suspected that there is sapient life on it. Thinkers are made up of individual plants, resembling trees, piled in small groves. They have some degree of mobility and can move around the area. Contact with the Thinkers is extremely difficult, since these creatures not only have an extremely slow thought process, but also seem to have no short-term memory. If the plants are not occupied with a thought for a long time, they will completely forget about it as soon as their attention is distracted by something else. Making contact with the Thinkers was one of the hardest trials for AI translators, which still cannot be successfully completed, not least because the Thinkers communicate using chemical compounds transmitted by roots. They have no hearing and their vision is provided by bundles of photosensitive leaves, which has an extremely low resolution. It is unlikely that Thinkers will ever build any technological civilization, let alone space flights. Their origin is a separate mystery, since both biologists and florists could not put forward an evolutionary theory that allows the emergence of such a form of life.

Dead civilizations

It is quite obvious that the current civilizations are not the first after the Ancients, which is confirmed by archaeological data - currently 320 planets are known where a civilization could exist, but the traces are ambiguous and weak; 114 planets with strong traces pointing to a past civilization; and eight planets where the existence of the ruins of a civilization is undeniable. The age of the remains of these civilizations varies in estimation from 300 thousand years, to tens of millions of years. Perhaps there were even older civilizations, but their traces become almost indistinguishable from natural fluctuations without a long and detailed study of the entire planet. Most of the already confirmed graves of civilizations were found either by accident or by global geological traces, such as the presence of radioactive dumps and/or the general depletion of mineral deposits. According to statistics, most civilizations die before reaching the space age, many of which died out immediately after the discovery of nuclear energy. 6 out of 8 planets with an undoubtedly confirmed former civilization were discovered thanks to artifacts of obviously artificial origin, preserved on the moons of these planets - probes or even buildings. Besides this, however, neither the equipment nor the structures of most civilizations are preserved in a form ideal for archaeological research. The only exception to this day are the artifacts of the Ancients, as if they ignore the processes of entropy. According to estimates from current statistics, every thirteenth planet capable of supporting life and old enough for it has hosted sapient species in the past.