Excerpt from the reports of ranger Ekaterina Smith:
"There are a dizzying variety of sentients to be found among the Dominions of Jath. This may have something to do with the biological nature of the zone, or perhaps it is the result of cultures which place a high value on mental ability and novelty, combined with the occasional rare individual possessing the ability to modify the structure of living organisms and potentially uplift one to intelligence. There are also a number of sentient species which arrived here from the greater galaxy only to be trapped by the lack of an effective means of escape."
Presented here is a small subset of the sentients living in the Dominion of Jath. They have been selected for their interest to the average visitor from the greater galaxy.
Elmuesn are the native culture of galactic standard humans. They are mostly the descendants of explorers and outriders who attempted to open the Dominions' zone to the greater galaxy. Once they arrived, the technology which allowed them to cross the quantum wall invariably leveled to something incapable of returning them to the greater galaxy. The first recorded discovery of such a stranded explorer by a Codoj ship-state was over two thousand years ago.
Physically, elmuesn are taller and thinner than the galactic average, but not enough to make them class II sentients. These minor differences are undoubtedly the result of adaptation to microgravity. Mentally, they mirror their ancestors, tending towards unconventional thinking and exibiting a form of curiosity that borders on compulsion. Most elmuesn are at some point afflicted with wanderlust, the desire to go out alone and explore for a long period of time. Their culture is nomadic; family groups and individuals can be found roaming through many a Codoj ship-state, surviving by transporting cargo or information from one location to another, or simply living off the land. Periodically, the majority of the elmuesn rendezvous for a festival or party at a preset time and place, during which stories of their wanderings are exchanged, friendships are renewed, and the Songs of the Greater Galaxy are sung. These ballads started as a way to pass on knowledge of the universe outside of the Dominions' zone to children, and over time have become an oral history of the elmuesn.
As a result of their origin, elmuesn are most common among the wanderer ship-states of the outer system. Their numbers have never been high, and unless a gathering is occuring on board, it is abnormal to find more than a couple of dozen elmuesn per ship-state. For the last few decades the most important gathering has been the one held biannually at Amshlitingsa.
Ydmyn are giant hive insectoids. They live in large colonies with hundreds, sometimes thousands, of members. Individual ydmyn belong to one of a number of specialized classes or castes within the colony. These classes are not so much social as they are physical. Each class has its own characteristic features, which may include wings, spinnarets, large mandibles or pincers, or a number of rarer tools. Individuals typically go through two or three pupal stages, during which they change class. It is impossible for some classes to change to some other classes, and individuals typically proceed from the very unspeciallized larval stage through progressively more speciallized forms.
All ydmyn have dark coloured carapaces, which in most cases are airtight, and can enable them to live in vacuum for over 20 hours at a time (longer if inactive). However, ydmyn are a microgravity species: they are immobilized by the weight of their exoskeleton in anything over a half a standard gravity.
Mentally, ydmyn often exibit idiot-savant-like intelligence. They usually have relatively childlike personalities, but are geniuses in their area of specialization. For example, traffic control ydmyn (one of the more specialized classes) are acknowledged to be some of the deepest thinkers in the mathematics of flow dynamics, having proved several important theorems and implemented some astonishingly efficient practical solutions to real-world problems, but usually cannot grasp even the basics of biology, or magic, or even geometry (an unrelated field of mathematics). Queens are an exception to this rule. Although huge and immobile, they are superior to humans in intelligence in every area.
Hives are found exclusively in the outer layers of ship-states, where they take advantage of their ability to survive in vacuum to bring in debris and other objects. Modern hives often run incoming and outgoing traffic in their region, acting like a sort of docking control. The more traffic a ship-state gets, the more hives are likely to be present, and the more organized they'll be, regardless of the ship-state's size. Smaller ship-states (less than 10km in diameter) don't usually get enough traffic to support an ydmyn hive.
Olrawan are one of the rare examples of a non-native species that has been uplifted to sentience through genetic engineering. Birds were brought with several early exploration ships, along with numerous other species, and, unlike the other imports, managed to establish themselves and spread throughout the Dominions. Olrawan were uplifted by an Ashrylosab on the wanderer ship-state Shingpla.
Olrawan have a type of group mind. The individual birds, called olrak, are about sparrow-sized, and gray with some black markings, with iridescent feathers on their heads. The iridescent, constantly shimmering head feathers are powered by a natural magical ability, and act as a sort of communication link, binding together the minds of a flock of olrak into a single individual, an olrawan. The link is only maintained while the individual olrak are in line of sight of each other, although relays, where one olrak can see another, which in turn can see the next, are possible. Each flock is actually a family group, mostly related, and although young olrak will often switch flocks, the flock as a whole is a cohesive group that stays together constantly.
Individually, olraks are about as intelligent as a two-year old human, albeit an incurably curious two-year-old, always getting into things and becoming fascinated with shiny objects. Together, an olrawan can match wits with any human, although they are somewhat less focused but better able to do multiple tasks at once. olrawan personalities tend to be a concentration of all the features of their olrak, which usually means that an olrawan is incredibly curious, rambunctious, and inclined to mischief.
Due to their origin, olrawan are most common among the wanderer ship-states of the outer system, although their innate curiosity has inevitably led to individual flocks establishing themselves in the most interesting parts of the inner system.
Shikkantin are often compared to octopi, despite having twelve tentacles instead of eight, being covered in short brown fur, and living in microgravity rather than water. They weigh, on average, about half the weight of an adult human, and, like humans, are omnivores. Shikkantin are a good example of two of the three main ways to move in microgravity, hand-over-hand (or tentacle-over-tentacle in their case), and air-jet. Their air-jet is a chamber connected to their respiratory system which can compress and expel air in short bursts. Their musculature is hydraulic (like a starfish, but faster) and is close to useless in anything above about a fifth of a standard gravity.
Mentally, shikkantin are highly intelligent, in some ways superior to humans (spatial abilities and multi-tasking mostly). Despite their completely different physical forms though, shikkantin and humans basically think alike, and humans and shikkantin usually get along quite well. Their societies are usually easily understandable by humans, although their academic sectors are usually more prominent than in comparable human societies, and their corporate sectors less prominent.
Shikkantin live primarily deep in the interior of ship-states where there is always an atmosphere. They are more numerous in the wonderer ship-states, possibly due to their academic bias, but it is rare to find a ship-state without a Shikkantin population.
Physically, itsrisn are partially humanoid, with a head, two limbs that could be called legs, and four more that could be called arms, and altogether about the same size as a human. There all resemblance ends. Although itsrisn have an internal skeleton, they are also covered in a spiky glass-like armour. The armour is silica based, but contains organics as well. It is smoky and translucent, with a reddish orange tint, possibly from the actual flesh of the itsrisn below it. The armour is in sections, and at the joints orangish fur grows out from between the plates. Itsrisn have shorter legs than humans, but their torso is wider, and their arms longer (probably indicating that they evolved from a brachiating organism). They are surprisingly strong, being one of the few species native to the Codoj empire to be able to function normally in a full standard gravity, despite their armour.
Itsrisn are mostly a military species, and their societies reflect this. Large populations are almost always found on warrior ship-states, where they act as soldiers during invasions and raids on other ship-states. On non-warrior ship-states, they mostly appear in mercenary companies, or occasionally as individual bodyguards or security consultants. Individually, they are perceived to be almost anti-social by humans. Itsrisn don't talk much, and tend to make their own decisions, ignoring the 'group consensus' of those around them unless they consisder themselves to be under orders. Despite common prejudices, itsrisn are not slavering killing machines. They aren't as upset by the concept of their own death or of killing as most humans are, but they are not enamoured of the ideas either. Individual itsrisn have their hobbies and interests, which are almost exclusively non-military in nature. Both their tendancy to act as individuals when not under orders and their non-military hobbies are normal parts of their society, and help them adjust to their lives as permanent soldiers.
It is believed that itsrisn are one of the oldest sentient species in the Codoj, having evolved on their own without the meddling of an ashrylosab to uplift them. That is not to say that they have survived unchanged though. Their armour was added by the newly aligned warrior ship-states during the first resource wars (see the history section), and they have been heavily modified since then to assist them in their military duties.
There is one group of itsrisn that somewhat breaks the standard mould. They travel from ship-state to ship-state as individuals and act as judges. At any one time, there are perhaps two dozen judges whose whereabouts are known, and on some occasions all of them have managed to disappear. They are usually evenly distributed through the Codoj home zone, and to have two judges onboard a single ship-state at the same time is almost unheard of. On some ship-states these judges are given full authority under local laws. Elsewhere, they are only tolerated by the local law, or are actively hunted down. None of this seems to matter to the judges, they go where they wish, and are usually quite unstoppable, even by other itsrisn. Anecdotal information indicates that the judges are trained at some sort of "judge home base", and are not permitted to leave that location until their instructors are confidant that they are competent to assume their duties. The location of this "home base" is unknown, and its very existence is still a matter of debate. What is known is that their ethical standards are remarkably consistent, to the point that different judges are known make the same judgement on the same situation without ever coming into contact with each other. Also, judges are always extremely competent, and invariably deadly, in the sense of 'potentially fatal'.
This is the part that disturbs local law enforcement the most: the judges don't just make judgements, they deal out punishments as well. In one well known case, a judge decided that a colony of senogs was threatening the regional ecological stability to the point that the entire ship-state would be in danger, and had already caused the local extinction of three other sentient species. In one of the only documented instances of contact between judges, two others arrived, and the three of them wiped out the entire colony through a combination of sabotage, poisoning, and outright slaughter. Judges have no qualms about using techniques that would be considered dishonourable by other itsrisn to implement their solutions to problems. The only reasons that judges aren't universally feared are that they always judge fairly and consistently, and their solutions never cause collateral damage. After destroying the senog colony, the judges proceeded rebuild the local ecology, a process which took decades.
Judges only consider matters that are brought to them, and most of the matters brought to them are quite small. Judges will accept any case, no matter how trivial, and their solutions are always matched to the scale of the problem. Their judgements often, but not always, conform to local law or tradition. From ending a children's argument over a broken toy to inter-ship-state disputes, judges are always impartial.
Sheson are one of the rare plant-like sentients. They look basically like trees, and are completely immobile. Internally they are more complicated, with optical 'nerves' formed into a distributed brain. Like many plants native to the Codoj home zone, they have innate magical abilities, and this is where they show their intelligence. Sheson are natural healers, and use their abilities to maintain the environment around them to their liking. By promoting beneficial organisms around them, and using the dark side of their abilities to destroy pests and other threats, they stabilize an area roughly 30m across, making it into a garden of sorts.
Sheson are quite difficult to communicate with. It can be done, but the actual number of times that someone has been able to carry on an extended conversation with a sheson can be counted on a shikkantin's tentacles.
Having a sheson garden can be quite nice, but do not make yourself appear to be a threat to a sheson, or it will destroy you just as it would destroy any other pest infesting its garden.