Long time ago I was writing on a new civilization/faction for Endless Space but I forgot to post the writing in here. I don't know if it still fits to the new canonicity of Endless Space because it was written since the early days of the game. To make my writing not absolutely senseless I wanted to share it with you guys, as far as it is finished. Have fun reading it, it's still a rather long post so be patient.





The Quetzel



Description



Under all known races the Quetzel are one of the most mysterious ones. Even for the sophisticated Endless these creatures were surrounded by a strange and mysterious mysticism which they couldn't explain to themselves surely.



They don't have or use technology at all, they don't have tools, they don't even know huts, houses or structures at all. However, because of these hard facts they are one of the most recognizable and most feared races when it comes to warfare.



They fight wars without using one single bomb, they neither use tanks nor bomber squadrons. A highly developed race would probably categorize the Quetzel as in the highest measure underdeveloped and barbaric. Well, nowadays only the view of a purblind bureaucrat would still question the unbelievable capacity of development which represents and characterizes the Quetzel culture and no one with a clear mind would ever question their potential being a force to be reckoned with.





Quetzel society and Quazeiel, the Quetzel homeworld



The Quetzel home world Quazeiel is covered with an impenetrable and thick jungle which offers place for absolutely unique creatures, weird fungi or bubble-like plants and strange creatures.

There are neither hunters nor hunted in the fauna of this world. It seems that the whole nature on the Quetzel homeworld is a one and only harmonic mutualism, a full balanced harmonic ecosystem.

In the evolutionary history the Quetzel learned to communicate with every single part of this unique ecosystem and it seems that the ecosystem of Quazeiel itself had specific points of natural inventions to develop into higher states. In the early history of Quazeiel, as historians conclude, there may have been a state in which the ecosystem of the planet was similar to the ones found on other planets which contains life. It's not clear why it developed in such a unique manner.



However, the Quetzel learned to communicate with all the living nature around, be it animal, plant or fungi, thus uniting all living races over time with their ability to shape nature due to their mind. They first reached the skies with the help of giant floating jellyfish-like floaters as they combined their sensoric tentacles with the tendrils attached to the bodies of this floating exotic beings.

However this ability is not directly in comparison with mind control or some kind of mind dictation, it is more or less a kind of symbiosis which they call the „Living Imperative“.

Living in harmony with all that given doesn't mean that this world doesn't contain dangers. Intruders not belonging to the ecosystem of Quazeiel awaits a dangerous amount of predators only hunting lifeforms of foreign structure and matter to include them into their very own holistic ecosystem.

The Quetzel however are the „dominant“ lifeform of Quazeiel and the only ever known evolutionary connecting property between all life forms of their planet.



The Quetzel can call up very dangerous predators when they have to defend their worlds against potentially invaders or they bombard foreign worlds, inhabited or not, with spores to either change the whole ecosphere or otherwise to get in contact with the existing natural environment of a planet. Their forms of colonizing foreign planets are admired by many races for their ingenuity and efficient radicality. At the same time their methods are feared by all those who are not able to understand their philosophy or don't agree with it. In every case a terraformed Quetzel planet seems like a natural paradise in the eyes of outsiders.



The definition of a „prosperous metropolis“ is literally taken in the culture of the Quetzel. Their towns and cities, if one prefers to call them in such definitions, are marked by wonderful exotic things and amazing plant-like structures, which even puts the most highest cultural developments of other civilizations in shade.



It is not to be said excessively that the Quetzel are the „leaders“ of their natural environment. They can easily shape their environment and even whole landscapes with their pure will. For this procedure they assemble themselve in groups because a single Quetzel can only affect and cover a certain vicinty.

In any case there are some individuals among them who are very powerful in shaping and communicating with other beings and some of them are even able to use the delivered and traditional ability of influencing anorganic minerals from the Harmony.



Not even that they can communicate with every single living part in their environment, they are even able to communicate with every natural environment on every planet offering place for organic life. This makes them very powerful in terraforming foreign planets. They avoid arctic and volcanic temperatured planets because of the immense difficulty to settle there due to prevailing natural processes of life hostility.



To fight the Quetzel is like to fight against nature itself, you can only stop them destroying all of their networks and environment.





History



The first contact made between the Quetzel and another alien power was during the time as the Endless built the first Sower prototypes. One of them was ordered to the Quetzel homeworld Quazeiel to prepare the planet for a potential future Endless expansion. At the time as the giant machine landed on the planet the Quetzel didn't evolved their full evolutionary potential and they weren't able to go to space. The machine recognized the presence of the indigenious Quetzel population and started a defense program devastating and burning down great areas of the overall growing tropical vegetation.



The Quetzel managed to organize themselves and after many years of fierce and desperate battles against this unknown enemy of destruction they reached to deactivate the main machine. The vegetation of Quazeiel began to embrace the wreck and after years of silence the machines location was almost unnoticeable. Since this firt meeting with technology the Quetzel became very distrustful against any form of those weird infertile and stiff things of uncontrollable rage and many legends are still present in the myth and legends of the Quetzel in this days about this symbol of inexcusable depravity.



The Endless never noticed this incident on Quazeiel because their empire began to crumble under the influence of internal civil wars and the potentially lack of information the machine could send through the dark void and distances of space.



Another more glamourus event in Quetzel history was the cultural exchange of Quetzel and the mysterious Harmony. The Harmony, in search for the galactic core, made a stopover on Quazeiel. This meeting was marked by big mutual respect in each others case and both races learnt immense new abilities of one another. Besides, it played no role for the Harmony that the Quetzel made only modest progress in astronautics in this historical segment of their history.



Approximately at the same time some unfaithful Quetzel groups divided a fanatical enthusiasm for the arcane and almost forgotten Sower-machine which they refered to as a „new gift of nature“ and tried to gain the abilities of the machine in benefit to themselves. After years in contact with the derelict machine first successes became apparent and they finally managed to invent synthetic crosses between technology and their ability to form organic creations. Their new form of symbiosis between technology and their very own system of life became more precisely and at the very last these „tech-heretic“ Quetzel became some kind of techno-organic lifeforms as they get deeper into contact with Dust. They managed to organize their actions secretly from the other Quetzel population. As the Harmony arrived the technological-interested Quetzel heard from their unimaginable abilities and wanted to control their powers. They knew that when they would face the non-technology Quetzel they would banish and hunt them, so they decided to stake everything on one card and attack their former brothers and friends to prove their new powers in action and to show them their superiority. Surprised by this harsh attack the Harmony and the Quetzel elders managed to defeat them in a fierce battle which became a famous legend among the Quetzel myths similar to the legend of the arcane machine. The inferior techno-organic Quetzel had to initiate an immediate retreat back into their hidings. In haste they got together searching for the last parts of the old machine in which they accidentally activated a distress signal caught up by the Sowers, now independent from their former supervisors, the Endless. Nevertheless, the signal was caught up by the Sowers many hundreds of years later which got them the necessary time to develop their space exploration.



After this event the Harmony decided to leave the planet once and for all. Nevertheless, it is argumentative among historians whether the Harmony left the planet because of the surprising attack or wanted to open anyway. In any case, the Quetzel saw the reason for their departure in the perfidious Quetzel which they pursued from now on relentlessly.



In the knowledge to be overrun by a superior strength of Quetzel forces, the techno-organic Quetzel decided to leave the planet in search for more Dust and other technologies and constructed a fully functional spaceship out of the Sower wreckage to maintain this goal. They were not seen since these times any more, however, their "heir" should occupy the Quetzel some centuries later once more.



Since these days the Quetzel of Quazeiel have a deep and abiding resentment over all technological inventions.



In Quetzel history and myths the Harmony are refered as natural beings of light, maybe similar to what other civilizations would call „angels“ and the techno-organic Quetzel as evil beings of destruction and darkness.



Slowly but steadily the Quetzel learned to reach the higher atmosphere of their homeworld and first space flights were successful.



The first extraplanetary attempt was to reach the asteroid ring surrounding their homeworld. As time passed the Quetzel connected the single asteroids with each other via plant-like tentacles or pipes winding into each other, thus stabilizing the planetary ring which became a fully functional space colony on a continuing basis of future space exploration. For outsiders these gigantic space colony seems like a planet surrounding network of tendrils and connected asteroids covered with exotic plant-like towers, which are in fact planetary defenses and lodgings and the last logical enlargement of the varied planetary flora and fauna. In early times it stood incessantly in contact with the ecosystem of the planet, but later it roses to a very own autonomous ecosystem with some unique plants and animals only seen on the planetary ring.



Approximately two centuries later the Quetzel reached the goal of traveling between stars without further problems. Their ships were fantastic creations of organic biomass and their unconventional structure allowed them to store a great amount of energy ressources which became a mixture between sunlight and other natural processes with a significant energy output.



Their overall organic ships were sleek in design like they would cut through the waves of dark space and they maintained this design till this days. There is no way for other races to control or capture their ships except the Quetzel themselves. This shows no safety measure of the Quetzel, but it concerns a natural constant of their ships.



As the Quetzel reached the space stage and encountered the first interstellar empires they couldn't believe that almost every culture used some kind of technology. Every single tool of technology seemed clumsy, awkward and primitive in comparison to their view of holy mother nature. They saw the process of imbalancing crudity caused by technological progresses and their influence on the balance of nature. They saw many shattered worlds destroyed by civilizations who burned the candle at both ends due to overexploitation of natural ressources.



This proscription of technology reached it's absolute culmination point at the time as the Sowers finally received the distress signal send out during the Quetzel schism. Due to heavy interferences and the isolated region in which Quazeiel lies, the signal reached it's destination point many centuries later.



The Sower forces, always in search for ressources, useful additions and new expansion regions, now started a giant wave of ships to the Quetzel homeworld to recover this ancient machine and it's lost secrets. But this time the Quetzel were prepared. They knew about technology and it's horrible influence on nature. With this in mind they eradicated all intruding Sower forces in a devastating battle which nowadays belongs to the galactic myths.



Since this day the Quetzel managed to start vast expansions waves to obtain planets and new regions.



Their journeys led them to the overall conclusion and the serious arrangement to oppose all factions who use some kind of technological invention and are not aware of their given ressources. This in fact means that almost every faction they encountered had to be cleansed and purified from their inexcusable progresses of imbalancing the overall given laws of life.



Nowadays the Quetzel are fulfilling their very own destiny: Annihilate all machinery, searching their treacherous brothers from once and probably find the once so glorified Harmony – or what has been left of them.

Good idea you got there



"Quetzel" I like that name lol

Tredecim wrote:
Good idea you got there



"Quetzel" I like that name lol

Hey, thanks! The idea was to create a very exotic fungi-/plant-like species, something like the Felucians of The Force Unleashed (Felucian). In some cases a high developed space faring tribe.



Gameplaywise they would terraform new planets the more civilians they are. This process endures a little time frame (research) because they have to learn to communicate with new plants and the overall nature of a new planet. On planets where there is no sign of life or which is devastated by machinery it endures a longer time or is not possible at all.



Glad you like it!

Ah, I see - "the more they are, the more terraforming" is quite an interesting idea too