The qulseoc technocracy
Species
the qulseoc. A species of amphibious cephalopods characterized by weak physiques and strong mental prowess. Both of which have grown ever more severe in scope due to gene therapy intent on expanding their already mighty brains. Their bodies are of a shifting color depending on their mood and with what intent thay might be talking to someone at that moment. Their default coloration is a muted shade of brown, with hotter colors like red and yellow signifying heigthened emotional states whereas colder colors indicate an unusual level of calmness or reservation.They reproduce ovipariously, with the femaly typically laying clutches of five to six eggs which hatch within five to six months.
Infant qulseoc are cared for by designated and qualified caretakers. The biological parents generally have nothing to do with the raising of their children as they are expected to continue working on their own assigned vocations.
The typical low to middle class qulseoc lives for a period of about 80 years. Around eight of which are spent being nurtured up after which they typicially join the active workforce population for about fifty years before being considered to be of retirement age. Upper-class Culseoq are considered too important to ever stop their work however, and as such see their lives artificially extended to a state of nigh on biological immortality.
Area in the galaxy: The inner norma arm
Technology
Qulseoc technology is their pride and joy. They have built a large part of their society around the development and advancement of technology, regardless of moral or ethical implications.
They are leading minds in the fields of genetic manipulation. Much of the species has been artificially evolved into a state considered more desirable in qulseoc society. Amongst other things these manipulations have eliminated the instinctual drive for reproduction, reducing it to a purely planned affair. As a consequence though, romance and love have also become quite abstract concepts to them.
As a physically weak species that became sentient seemingly more by luck than anything else, another technological focus of the Qulseoc has been tools and weaponry. Cultural attitudes have made their high-end robotics and warfare equipment designed specifically to be operated by a qulseoc, with the complexity of their designs making retrofitting to adapt it to more humanoid races quite a difficult endeavour.
The aforementioned genetic manipulation the Qulseoc practice, as well as their advances in the field of neuroscience, can be considered quite transgressive and morally reprehensible by more conservative races. Their current genetic state has been reached through extensive eugenetics programs that continue to this day, with reproduction being a tightly planned practice based upon genetic profiling and pairing of partners that oftentimes have never even met each other before being required to 'perform their reproductive duty'. Neurosciences and psychology are similiarly of questionable moral ground, with brainwashing and careful though reassignment being practiced to keep their society unified and peaceful.
History
The qulseoc formed out of the primordial soup of a mostly land-covered planet they refer to as Krilles. For a long time, the primal squids' lives were short and brutal. Their species only barely hanging on due to quick reproduction and the subtle beginnings of their later advanced intelligence giving them just the small edge they needed. To their fortune, some great natural disaster heavily upstet the biosphere, creating an evolutionary bottleneck in which they came out on top.
The upstart stages of their civilization already saw them favoring coöperation and intelligence over brute force, and it was quickly established that not the strongest, but the brainiest were the most succesful.
This maxim has survived all the way to the present day, where it has come to define the way their society is organized.
Government
The qulseoc's government is heavily based upon merit. With the most competent amongst them getting the most resources to further the cause of their entire kind with. The ruling class consists of great scientists, engineers, and even some less hard sciences like psychologists. Titles, lands and resources are alloted based upon past contributions that a qulseoc has made to society, with the leading minds in fields being granted overlordship over their colleagues in their respective field of study and allowing them to define the focus that their shared research projects will generally follow. Ventral leadership of the technocracy changes every four years, with a vote being called from all sector overseers to determine who will hold office as grand overseer for the next four years. OVerseers are required to motivate this vote with a short explanation with references to scientific achievements of their supported candidate. This to prevent nepotism from influencing the vote too heavily.The grand overseer has the authority to make decisions for the technocracy as a whole. THe sector overseers under him are expected but not required to advise him in matters they hold jurisdiction over. They also have the authority to overturn decisions concerning their own area of expertise. In practice, this rarely happens, as a grand overseer will usually delegate a decision of such nature to a sector overseer anyway.
A sector overseer generally holds dominion of about 3 or 4 systems that see the most intensive research of their assigned field. Below them are, in order of importance, system overseers, planetary overseers and sattelite overseers. Every title in this hierarchy save for a sector overseer can be freely granted or revoked by any qulseoc directly above them in hierarchy. In cases where the assignment of a title is contested, the decision is usually defaulted to the one holding the highest office. Special exceptions can be made, such as legitimate concerns of nepotism or similiar corruption that can see an unqualified qulseoc. assigned a title.
The current grand overseer is marianas-5. Overseer of physics and discoverer of FTL travel. He has been in office ever since he brought the qulseoc onto the interstellar stage approximately four-hundred years ago. The most important and notable sector overseers in his current cabinet are ;
° barrier-2: overseer of social sciences, representative of the qulseoc in the galactic council and instrumental player in the pacification of the savarog.
° barracuda-1: overseer of military industry, part of the upper command structure of the savarog-qulseoc military forces and reformer of the savarog military.
° angler-3: overseer of qulseoc genetics and initiator of the genetic purification program.
°angler-2: overseer of xenogenetics and assisting player in the reform of the savarog military.
most of these cabinet members have been in office along with marianas-5 since the beginning of his reign.
Culture and religion
The centerpiece of all qulseoc culture is an ideal known as cosmic order, a state of the universe where differences between cultures and religions have been eliminated or rendered insignificant. In such a way that all people can work together to achieve the best possible life for everyone.
Qulseoc culture is quite utilitarian and meritocratic in nature. With a strong push for citizens to focus their lives on things directly benificial to society. Strong automization of industry has made manual labor quite obsolete, and so even the lowest classes of workers have some sort of education, even if it's in a rather mundane field like robot maintenance. Oppurtunities for advancement are nominally present for all layers of society, but lack of economic and social mobility and entrenchment of the higher classes make workers rising up to be something greater a rather rare occurence. Most Qulseoc are not realy upset at this state of affairs due to a strong conditioning to accept that those of higher intelligence deserve more authority.
Qulseoc do have an appreciation for the arts, contrary to what one would believe given their rather rigid and objective-focused worldview.A qulseoc will tell you that arts have a purpose, that being distracting ones mind from the slog of daily life. Qulseoc art is generally soothing and aesthetically pleasing, with so called 'modern' art oftentimes being dismissed as a pretentious waste of time. Qulseoc theatre and film is renowned throughout the milky way for its eloquent choice of words and complex multi-faceted storylines, said to be a consequence of them having no concept of a 'lowest common denominator'. Music is a more recent addition to the world of Qulseoc arts, with creative young minds experimenting with electronically generated sounds to create both soothing ambiences and exciting melodies. Naturally, the older generations refuse to acknowledge this new music as a true discipline of the arts.
When it comes to religion, Qulseoc take quite a scientific approach. That being that they acknowledge its existence as a societal construct, but mostly consider themselves to be above it. At least until such a time as when one can present them with factually correct and scientific proof that a being of divine nature does in fact exist. So far, this implicit challange to all religions of the universe has gone unchallanged.
Military doctrine and organization
The qulseoc are somewhat neutral on the topic of warfare, seeing it as just another means to an end, though one that should be carefully considered before being used. Their military works closely together with that of the savarog federation, having united into an efficient and ruthless machine of war. Qulseoc military technology is focused on shock and awe through application of surgical strikes with overwhelming firepower. They will always endeavour to know as much as possible about their enemy and the battlefield before commiting manpower to an operation.
Qulseoc generally prefer to make ground assault through remotely operated combat drones that are deployed en-masse. The smaller drones are operated using autonomous programming while the larger drones are piloted by dedicated personnel.
The mainstay and signature combat platform of the qulseoc ground forces. The Piranha swarm drone is a small, mass-produced piece of equipment with simple but versatile programming. They are deployed for anything from clearing landing zones to sweeping through resistance pockets. They are armed with particle accelerator repeaters and move using a simple set of thrusters. Though they are individually easily taken out even by civilian security forces, they are a force to be reckoned with when used in great quantities. Due to their expendability, they also come with a built-in self-destruct function that allows them to be used as improvised guided missiles
A modified variant of the piranha drone that trades the particle accelerator for a long-distance communicator and high-definition camera. They are programmed with advanced recognition software that allows them to spot and confirm hostiles from about one to two kilometres away. In the event that they encounter hostiles, they will broadcast a call for a piranha swarm to sweep the area with extreme prejudice.
An android drone deployed in occupied population centers and politically unstable areas. The peacekeeper drone is armed with an array of less than lethal armaments and a built-in voice synthesizer that can simulate the languages of most known races. They are humanoid in design but still explicitly robotic in appearance as to not unnerve likely already nervous people due to the uncanny valley. Peacekeeper drones operate semi-autonomously, defaulting decision-making to a qulseoc operator when they encounter a situation their current programming does not cover.
Amongst the heavier and more complex qulseoc drones, the Bullshark is likely the most well known. Equipped standard-issue with a turreted plasma cannon complemented by a set of kinetic multicannons and propelled by a set of rugged threaded wheels, this drone is deployed through orbital drop to break through fortified positions that the standardized piranha drone swarm tactic cannot succesfully break through. They are directly operated by a team of qulseoc operators, making them much more intelligent and dangerous foes than the comparatively rather rigid and easily confused autonomous drones.
A support unit outfitted for field maintenance. These drones come standard equipped with a military-grade multitool and standardized field maintenance procedures for most qulseoc technology. Their omnidirectional thrusters grant them great capability for precision manouvering.
The centrepiece of any dedicated qulseoc task force, the megalodon is a carrier-class capital ship several kilometres in length. Assembled and operated purely in outer space due to their enormous mass, these ships can carry enough equipment, supplies and personnel to operate as an autonomous military base deep in enemy territory. Naturally, their large size and lack of manouverability makes them easy targets in skirmishes of space superiority, and so they are always deployed alongside a dedicated battlefleet of escorts and support craft.
Abothzer staple of any qulseoc task force, these ships, measuring a full kilometer in length and equipped with laser turrets and missile tubes, these fearsome assault ships can project a massive amount of firepower. Two of these are considered the standard escort of a megalodon carrier class. They are however, not usuallyh equipped for direct surface assaults.
A specialized support ship designed for orbital precision bombardments on enemy positions on the planet surface. Lined with radar-absorbing materials and designed specifically for spped and stealth, the first and last thing most enemies see of this bomber is usually the heat of their payload falling through the atmosphere. The typical manta carries enough ordnance to hit several targets in a single mission.
One of the few drone spacecraft in the qulseoc armada, these small figthers are part of the standard mission equipment of a megalodon carrier class. These small craft are capable of flight in both open space and in atmosphere. Usually deployed as escorts to smaller vessels like manta bombers, these small craft are remotely operated by qulseoc operators as while they can be seen as the equilevant of the piranha class swarm drone in spacecraft-scale combat, doing so would be a large waste of resources due to the comparatively larger amount of resources used to build each individual figther.
Kept as an utmost secret and contained in cryopods, with their minds constantly run through realistic VR training simulations. These lab-grown qulseoc supersoldiers are the result of a top-secret experiment splicing the DNA of multiple of the most deadly species in the galaxy together, using the qulseoc's genetic code as a base palette. The stygians are fearsome creatures to behold on their own terms. Hulking in size and muscle mass compared to a normal qulseoc and armed with stingers holding a lethal neurotoxin, these monstrosities would be able to kill several men armed with nothing but their tentacles. Furthermore, whereas a normal qulseoc's coloration chnages based on involuntary subconcious processes, these things can conciously control their coloration, their default color being a dark blue. The color of unflappable and unnatural calm in the qulseoc's chromatic emotion language.
Of course, these paragons of modern warfare would not be complete without the top-notch of technology offered by the qulseoc's armory. Armed with a form-fitting combat suit made of a kevlar-like substance strong enough to stop even most military-grade munitions with minimal damage. The suit has a built-in power and life-support system driven by a miniature fission reactor. When it comes to armaments, they are armed with the fearsome Shellcracker anti-materiel rifle. The current top of the line in military grade precision weapons. Capable of blowing a hole the size of a basketball into a savarog with just a glancing shot, if used correctly, it can take out anything from aircraft to tanks from distances up to one and a half kilometres away, with sofer targets like infantry being reliably killed from distances even further than that.
The stygians do not have a place in qulseoc society. They have no identity and no rights of their own. Their existence is denied by all echelons of qulseoc leadership, be it civilian or military. Kept in hidden bases on the fringes of civilization, sleeping in cryopods and only woken up for missions. Constant conditioning through VR has made these creatures nevertheless absolutely loyal to their commanding officer, whoever that may be when they are activated. A stygian will only be deployed in the most dire or urgent situations, the reason for this being twofold. Firstly, a stygian is immensely costly both in creation and in deployment. Secondly, liberal deployment of stygians would make it hard to impossible to keep their existence as much of a secret as it currently is.
Stygians are meant to be deployed as fully autonomous units in highly hostile enviroments, often with the singular purpose of eliminating an extremely high-value target. The mission takes precedence over everything, including the Stygian's own survival. Thus, a stygian will always fight to the death by any means available to it. Should a stygian ever find itself killed or otherwise incapacitated, the internal power source of their suits will automatically overload itself, causing an explosion that utterly vaporizes both the stygian and anything standing in a ten meter radius. A secondary failsafe is also present should some circumstance prevent this detonation. A stygian's heavily modified biology makes it so their bodies decompose into an unidentifiable acidic sludge mere hours after death.
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Personal Kraxx Mech of the leader of the Savarog Federation, this colossal vehicle is even deadlier than the standard, mounting both thicker armour and even more guns...
