The Argandan Collective

Name of Empire:
The Argandan Collective)

Primary Species:
Arganatorians


Secondary Species:
The Nachtarids (slave race, not fully sentient)


Empire Size:
Moderate, but spread out greatly


Population:
18 billion total, 13 billion Nachtarids:5 billion Arganatorians


Name of Capital/homeworld and other major planets or facilities:
Homeworld: Ternara (population 2 billion)
Major planets: Morgand (population 6 billion, more important than Ternara by resources but not culturally)
Garanthan (population 3 billion)
Major Facility: Trigandatorus (population 4 billion)
Major Moon Base: Ignac (population 1 billion)


Description of Capital/homeworld and other settlements of note:
-Ternara is a planet of small houses spread out across a vast, engineered landscape. Seeking to preserve their homeworld, the Arganatorians have avoided mining the planet ever since they made it into space in order to avoid destroying their beloved origin. It has little tactical significance but a large cultural significance and many Arganatorians housed on its surface.
-Morgand is a massive planet twice the size of Ternara with thrice the population. It has by far the most Arganatorians living on it, and is an extremely cold winter planet with no life on it that wasn't brought by colonizing Arganatorians, who aren't bothered by the planet's cold (average 100 kelvin) temperature. The majority of Arganatorian settlements are underground to avoid the nuisance that is Morgandan wind, and, unlike Ternara or any other Arganatorian-occupied planet, most individuals reside fairly close together, with the largest settlement being Io on the warmer (120 kelvin) average temperature.
-Garanthan is a desolate waste-world that was wiped clean of the life that once existed on it by invading Arganatorian weapons. No Arganatorian touched limb on the planet's surface until after all life was dead, and they live about 15 feet above the planet in artificial buildings inclined towards a Spartan lack of comfort in order to be economical in the Arganatorians' first colonial endeavor. Arganatorian settlements are fairly spread out, and a huge portion of the population live separately in single-occupant (plus slave(s)) units.
-Trigandatorus is the gigantic mothership of the Arganatorians. It serves as their largest form of intersystem transportation and is equipped with many colonizing fleets. Once it has been somewhere, is never returns, but instead continues sailing farther away from Ternara as it goes, seeding Arganatorian settlements throughout the galaxy.
-Ignac- Ternara's moon, which is large enough to have an atmosphere and supports a population of Arganatorians.


Government:
Complete Communism


Name of Leader(s):
Arganatorians are collectively nameless, in a sense that they recognize each other by their minds, not by names. Thus, their leaders are not named. They can, however, be referred to by their job descriptions.
-The Representative
-The Diplomat
-Warmaster


People of importance:
-The Representative is an Arganatorian who spends all of her time trying to think of better ways for the Arganatorians to spend their resources. Though replaceable, she is the Arganatorian best capable of filling her current role.
-The Diplomat spends all of his time trying to think of solutions to problems, especially (of course) ones involving people, though those problems tend to pop up the most between different planets, as they are isolated enough that mental communication, which is not instantaneous, is slow enough for different worlds to think differently.
-The Warmaster thinks up new weapons and weapons applications, and is the most tactically-minded Arganatorian alive, and the only Arganatorian old enough to remember war and battles with the now completely-dominated Nachtarids.


Economic Type:
Communist


Desired Social Perk:
Intimidating- as the Arganatorians aren't even humanoids, they aren't familiar and evoke fear easily, allowing for easier threats and coercion when dealing with other species.


Technology Tree:
-All buildings/ships/dwellings of any sort are constructed of a hard lightweight mix of various synthesized plastics and metals. Anything with military importance (or weapons) are made of metal, however.
-Smaller ships utilize something similar to a Alcubierre drive for propulsion, though they only move at about 1/4 the speed of light as of this time. There is no Casimir effect caused by the Alcubierre drives due to their STL speed and careful design. Larger ships (such as Trigandatorus) use extremely focused heat emissions to move, though they stop extremely slowly.
-Everything that requires power uses a mixture of solar and nuclear power.
-Communications are naturally accomplished at short (planetsize) distances naturally through telepathic communication. Transmitters so large they require moon-sized masses at a minimum to safely support them can boost communications to light speed, though they are extremely expensive to make.
-Weaponry is mostly modified mining equipment designs (lasers, mining explosives). However, it is militarized and should not be taken lightly. Also available to the Arganatorians are nuclear warheads shot with miniaturized Alcubierre drives. Unlike in ships, there is an intentional Casimir effect accompanying the warheads that does additional incredible damage to exacerbate the damage from the warheads. Unfortunately, they also pose a danger to everything nearby, including Arganatorian ships if they are not out of range. The Alcubierre drives can be modified on ship with enough warning to result in faster/slower missiles that deal more/less damage from the Casimir force, allowing for the potential for suicide nukes.


History:
(Note: history starts with a repeat of what's in the Species archive)
It is generally accepted by the Arganatorians that in the beginning, there was nothing but a big ball of compressed particles known as the Arn. They say that when Argana, lord creator, burst the Arn, existence as it is known began. A scant billion years later, the planet of the Arganatorians, Ternara, had finished developing and the conditions for life, while not ideal, were in place. One day, a day like any other, changed when ball lightning from the ionized atmosphere collided with the surface of a lake that was eventually known by the Arganatorians as Yanagtune, The Start. Life grew and developed from this single lake on the skin of a large planet and slowly spread to cover the rest of Ternara. Due to the singular environment that early life evolved in, most Ternaran life is still, to this day, very genetically similar.

Arganatorians as they are now developed from an earlier, lesser race called the Nachtarids, which were essentially a larger, less intelligent armless version of the Arganatorians that traveled in packs and had hive-minds (one per pack) which, despite the tactical advantages provided to the almost-sentient Nachtarids by the hive-minds prevented quick innovation by essentially limiting their species, mentally, to single individuals that avoided all contact with each other. As the Arganatorians were individuals with a less perfect group mind that was almost a background connection rather than total unity shared by groups of Nachtarids, the Arganatorians were able to start thinking up new tactics and technologies that allowed them to dominate the less intelligent Nachtarids.

As the Arganatorians eclipsed the Nachtarids as the dominant species on Ternara, they quickly began organizing into larger and larger groups for safety from the vicious Ternaran wildlife. They didn't kill or betray each other for fear of the pain they would share with the fallen, didn't deceive each other due to an inability to do so, and, as a cohesive group of intelligent individuals rapidly grew their civilization until it covered Ternara entirely. With the sole exception of the Great Famine of 21512, in which the Arganatorians finally exhausted the resources available to them, the unified Arganatorians grew without strife or unnecessary death until they had explored their entire planet. Having shared in all of each others experiences and thus unable to find new ones on Ternara, they began to seek out dangerous experiences in order to experience the very individual chemical rush from near-death while ever-expanding towards the stars due to nothing but boredom. Armed with boredom and a complete lack of empathy for non-Arganatorian species, Arganatorians reached for the stars to see what they could find- all the while researching a way to destroy, or at least limit, their collective group consciousness in order to finally allow individuals a way to experience new things for themselves.

(New history starts here)

The first Arganatorian ship to successfully reach beyond the borders of their planet was a primitive aerodynamic rocket that worked by rapidly launching out matter behind it to create lift and move against gravity. Unsatisfied with this, the Arganatorians slowly worked on improving their ship designs while constantly launching manned expeditions towards Ignac, Ternara's moon, which was terraformed more and more with each incoming ship. Soon after completely colonizing Ignac, the Arganatorians successfully launched their crowning achievement in space travel- the Trigandatorus ship, which could carry billions of Arganatorians in a constant colonizing wave outwards and onwards. By never stopping, stripping passed asteroids for materials, and keeping up a constant maintenance team of slaves, Trigandatorus was able to continually move nearly indefinitely, and was considered to be a landmark achievement for the race.

As it continued on, Trigandatorus seeded more and more planets, with Morgand coming first and more following after. However, not many planets were ever fully occupied and technological advancement ground to nearly a halt without any true reasons for it to advance- until the war with Garanthan.

Never having experienced war and not anticipating the life that they found when they first visited Garanthan, the Arganatorians were brutally outmatched in the early stages of the war. Forced to create new things and separated from their home planet of Ternara, the invading Arganatorians quickly created new weapons by modifying mining and transportation technology into something that the Arganatorians had never truly thought of: creations meant solely to kill and destroy other sentient beings.

After quickly conquering Garanthan with the new advent of weaponized nuclear tech, the Arganatorians once again stretched to the stars, hungry to test their new weapons again and to possibly find something, some way, to finally allow them to be individuals.

Accepted!