PLEASE. CONTINUE.

Only a tiny fraction of the last inhabitants of a dead universe remain here. Many are simply extinct, many more have abandoned sentience. Some still went insane in the unnatural environment. The rest merely war as they have before all were united in efforts to escape the death of the universe, trapped in a cycle of war and expansion and their inevitable decline doomed to repeat itself under the watch of a system that no longer recognizes them.

>>14617714
Only 5 species remain with their sapience intact. Time continues on and the automatic systems of the Monument work their strange godlike technology on their genomes to accelerate the drive of evolution, turning those 5 into countless splinters that no longer recognize their kinship to one another. These are now known as the 5 great lineages to which all sapient life claims ancestry too. Each is named for the ancient star that saw their birth and growth into the cosmos, its name passed down through the ages.

>>14617677
>they could not fix what mattered the most. The nature of the heart
...
What? Please elaborate op.

dicks

>>14617780
Basicly, without a cause to unite life, everyone settled back to their old ways of killing the fuck out of each other for stuff

>>14617780
The nature of the heart, as in, the metaphysical heart of emotions and feelings. This hints at that despite TECHING UP succesfully, they fell prey to their own base feelings as a whole.
>>14617809
Basically this.

Do want.

>>14617809
>>14617813
Thanks. English is not my native tongue and so I have trouble understanding such a phrase.

>>14617813
How could they tech up so and not simply excise their (unwanted) emotions and biological urges?

>>14617836
Would you consent to having ANY emotion taken from you? If you answered no, then congratulations, you are a human being.

Now while I am perfectly capable of coming up with the other 4 of the species and their derivatives (because i am of course using humans), I'd rather turn the setting over to you to add what you will because that would be far more interesting.

As a whole I was going for a bizzare world in which ancient AIs posed as gods and magic was merely the workings of advanced technology as the place is probably crawling with nanomachines or even smaller wierd things that answer to the whims of those that learn the secrets of invoking them.

>>14617836
But would you want to do that? Would you freely give up the nature of being human? I wouldn't.

You know op... As a writer, I can understand if you don't want to/ are afraid to go into detail, but if you could be bothered, do you think you could describe the race involved? I would like to set a game here, but I would feel wrong making something up if I knew the writer had a better alternative hidden away in his mind.
What are the aliens like, op?

>>14617836
there might still be species left over that did that to themselves but they got shafted by those that didn't and kept their competitive urges

>>14617849
I actually have mild psychopathy.

Regardless, plenty of people who would very much enjoy to be able to selectively turn off emotions when it is inconvenient to feel them - basically a shortcut of the emotional control that is necessary to function in society.

>>14617836
>>14617849
>>14617862
TO sum it up, if what you are aiming for is a RL-sim so that you can have a harem of your own Culture style, why give up the very reason you enojoy it? I.E. your physical drives for it that provide joy/fun.

>>14617883
but when you are angry and don't reach across the table to jam your fingers in someone's eyes, you aren't turning off anger, you are just keeping yourself from committing murder. Anger is sometimes useful, and once you are angry enough to do something you would regret, I have to question how many people would be able to "turn it off" instead of punching someone until they are a stain on the floor.
Though I do see what you are saying, and such a device may be useful.

So what is your brand of crazy like, psycho man? I want to know so I know which parts of Criminal Minds to laugh at.

>>14617880
I would love for nothing more than /tg/ to take this idea and run wild with it. It's set up so you can mash tropes of fantasy and space opera (and heavily inspired by Last Exlie) together in a setting thats large enough to contain what you want. The diameter of the outer shell is about the distance from the Sun to Saturn or so.

Really the only idea i had for its sapient inhabirants were humans, some aliens that have a body structure similar to the pic attatched (but with another 5 legs and then 2 tentacle arms). Outside of that keeping the body types of the other aliens as very much not human would work best.

An idea that I always entertained in my head was a sort of algae hive-mind, that could shift and change form as necessary, or create biological processes as the hive deemed fit. Super-adaptable, capable of spawning and increasing the equivalent of brain mass, ect.

>>14617921
derp'd and forgot my pic

>>14617909
It doesn't even need to be chosen by the individual - power structures would mandate that children be implanted with such controls from birth. Thought control, bro, it's deep shit. At high enough tech level doesn't even need to involve actual physical implants, when you can accomplish the effect through EM waves and memes.

And a lack of empathy.

>>14617931
while interesting i dont think that would make for a very good "player" species

maybe if it was an individual with hiveminded parts

>>14617959
While this is true, it is sort of like the implementing of eugenics. It's not that the method isn't sound, but more that such an idea has the potential to be morally reprehensible, or could become so depending on who is in control.
I would be all for eugenics, for example, if it were just about systematically sterilizing the people with stuff that's wrong with them, but the problem is who gets to decide what is and isn't a flawl, and where does it end?

>>14617959
well from what I see, the place is completely autonomous and self-sufficent and will be that way for billions of years to come. Once each species entered the "cosmic ark" they don't really need to do more than kick back and relax and wait for the rebirth of the universe.

Maybe there were emotional controls in its early history but eventually individuals started to throw off those shackles. Eventually enough people do it and its get out of control and they a pull a "fall of the eldar".

>>14617996
When you develop self-improving AIs and they take control.

>>14617961
>>14617961
Like a human, with individual hiveminded 'parts' linked to their brain?

Also, fish-people in the rivers of plasma?

>>14618028
the rivers of plasma were there to be an analogue to the sun in bits that aren't in direct line of sight to it.

Any species that lives in it likely aren't going to have much reason to leave it.

>>14617853
Given that this should have a feel of the playable races worshiping "sufficiently advanced" technology, the four races other than human might fall fairly close to classic fantasy races with a sci-fi twist. For instance, there is a race of tall, slender humanoids with wide eyes who seem very adept at "magic". Humans once called them the Grey, but have since reverted to an even older name, the Faerie.

>>14618053
Ew, I don't like that at all. It's not that it is a bad idea, but this setting is too unique to do something like that. It's basically the idea they had for 40K, but done better. I'd rather see actual alien looking things than the same old shit again.
For example, op's algae monster.

>>14618078
Scramblers from Blindsight.

But they'd probably be overpowered and at odds with the setting.

>>14618037
True, true.

Sentient energy that inhabits a mechanical body?

>>14618053
thats what the "turning those 5 into countless splinters that no longer recognize their kinship to one another" line was for
Anything sufficnetly human in body type you can just say they came from human stock.

>>14618016
Who is to say the AIs won't one day go "rogue" and decide that limiting the emotions of people is boring?

>>14618150
Being bored would imply AIs have emotions.

Why would they have emotions? Because it's much more appealing in a narrative sense?

>>14618103
why not make them sort like the replicators from Stargate though rather than being a giant hivemind, each individual is only limited to so many parts at once.

>>14618163
they could spontaneously develop emotions

thats pretty much what rogue AIs do

look at GLaDOS and SHODAN

>>14618078
Fair enough. So there could be humans, a race of animate algae, and... something silicon based? Something that feeds on ambient energy and while they could eat more concentrated power sources (fire, electricity, plasma...) doing so could result in either a torpor to "digest" it all, or becoming extremely active to get rid of excess energy before they overload.

>>14618172
>>14618180
combine these and you get a species that would be fucking fun to play as

especially if you do it fantasy-like

so far humans, squid-walkers, energy-lego begins

what else?

>>14618172
Maybe the hive-mind could be able to only stretch so far? Has its limits, unless some of this tech gets involved.

Maybe figure out certain, defining things about each lineage that makes them, them?
And then expand from there, forming the splinters.

>>14618230
>so far humans, squid-walkers, energy-lego beings

>>14618235
no what I'm saying is that rather than having an meta-mind between them all, there are individual minds that are able to control numerous "lego bits". That way you can have two in the same room and their pieces are totally distinct.

There could of course be a sub-species that has an overmind that encompasses them all though.

>>14618190
Natural bodies are crystalline, use their energy feeding/control to add extra mass? Most can only add more of the base matter that makes up their bodies, and then only to a certain point. Some are more capable and can interface with electronic devices, adding robotic limbs and such. Still, they have to eat enough energy to maintain it all, and robotic parts can't feed on dangerous energy sources, getting damaged by such and thus not considered reliable.

Well let's see. In a Kurt Vonnegut book I read, he described these creatures that fed off vibrations. They absolutely loved music, though whenever ones would come into direct contact with speakers, they died of ecstasy. Someone who is better at this than I could use that.
Also, think about day to day life. What do they use as currency? What do they live in? Is there artificial weather?

>>14618259
I'd guess they'd have a good bit of stuff thats analogous to carbon-based life forms. Though as far as they are concerned they would be "organic" in their own sense.

They could likewise have gender in that there is one type of individual that gives up a piece of its physical body to another invidual that supplies with it with energy so it develops into a distinct third that inherets some of its particle-waveform matter characteristics from both parents.

>>14618279
yes there is artificial weather (directed by the whims of the AI "gods") and naturally occuring weather.

And I think these crystaline energy beings would probably need a diet that includes matter in it so they can continue to maintain their phsyical bodies.

>>14618279
>fed off of vibrations
Too far man. The setting here is about getting back to the roots.
It's too bad there's no room for an 'underdark'. Aboleth/illithid types would fit in nicely here, as one of the species that went insane.
We need a species that eschewed sapience like in OP post.

>>14618365
there could very well be an "underdark" as the shells are likely big enough they can have vast subterranean networks in them. Hell the outer most shell is 1/10 of a light second thick. That's more than enough room.

Don't remember where, but I read some research paper before about the possibility of silicon based life. Carbon life-forms have incredible metabolisms due to the use of oxygen, which silicon creatures wouldn't be able to emulate. They would be much slower, but have far greater endurance. There's no reason that they couldn't have genders.

An energy based entity could probably bypass the slower metabolism. However, their "brain" would need to be a physical object. So that could be the "core" of whatever extra mass they add. They could possibly alter extra mass into more brain tissue/circuitry, but would run the risk of it being damaged if expanded past the point it was protected inside their body.

>>14618365
Race of super-intelligent non-sapient space starfish inhabiting maintenance ducts and the like.

>>14618382
totally added ot the energy-lego-critters

how about Azha for their lineage name?

Not quite a race thing, but an example of how I'd see the magic working.

Conjuring would work vaguely like FMA. You'd take some raw material, rocks, corpses, whatever. Then you'd chant, or draw a circle, or whatever, in order for the raw material to transform into whatever you want.

In reality, highly advanced nanomachines (picomachines? Even smaller?) would be disassembling the matter on a subatomic level and be putting it back together in the form the caster desires. The chant, runes, or whatever the caster uses to make it happen, would actually be instructions in an ancient programming language, the one used to program said nanomachines.

"Leveling up" would be improving your nanomachines or getting new, better ones. As time goes on, you could eventually conjure things out of mid-air, using the air itself as a raw material.

>>14618404
Sounds good. What next? We have humans, algae, and energy legos. Maybe a classic bug race? Or not so classic, they could be a centipede-like species or something.

>>14618432
you sir are a genius

also for the squid-walkers, Sheliak.

>>14618441
no the algae hivemind was rolled into the energy beings.

So far we have Sol (Humans), Azha (Energy-Legos), and the only alien race the OP mentioned in >>14617921 which were just suggested to be called Sheliak.

>>14618455
He's a genius? This is the basic groundwork stuff.
Next up: Gods. Do we have any?
Also this setting makes room for the rules lawyering of 3.5e, and may make room for the effect of CHIM from Morrowind. Sound good, or too much?

>>14618441
cross centipede with the luminoth from Metroid Prime 2

>>14618432
Brilliant. Flashy combat "spells" could be interfacing with internal defense systems. Some mages can call energy bolts from certain sources, the most powerful have had their nanites build circuitry into them that can fire off electrical charges or other energy based attacks.

>>14618471
the gods are all hyper advanced AIs that in the eons have grown personalities and quirks. Some probably know the truth of whats going on but don't see the point in telling anyone while others are just insane like GLaDOS.

>>14618472
Religious centi-moths? Could be interesting. How do you see them in terms of combining the physical features? And what sort of religion might this particular group practice?

>>14618481

Possibly "mages" have nanites in their bloodstream that let them directly interface with several basic systems of the ark? By invoking calls in the ancient programming language, they more or less hack into the ark's computers and cause the systems to do something. Like the conjuring I mentioned before, or the energy bolts you brought up.

Possibly priests in this setting would would be in communication with the AIs that run the ark, either through a similar nanite biocomputing network or through some other, more esoteric method. Maybe some sort of electromagnetic waves? I'd probably go with the nanites, that way "angels" (robotic servitors of the AIs) could bestow the "blessing of the gods" (the AI communication interface) upon the chosen priests/clerics/paladins.

moar please. I'ma use this in my next campaign...

>>14618512
i guess naga-like, you take the upper body of a luminoth, mabe with shorter arms, and then slap on centipede tail

i like the idea of them being shamanistic but the place is big enough that it could be whatever you want

>>14618521

Not to mention that the nanites could possibly allow a venue for bodily transformations given by the gods. "For your wonderful service to me, I give you the gift of flight." Then the nanites get a command from the AI to dick with the priest's genes or fabricate up robotic wings of some sort.

>>14618538
So which priesthood gets Ganmen?

>>14618521
>>14618528
Perhaps magery is passed down bloodlines, from the programmers,engineers, and security forces of old. The Lumipedes once held a great many technical positions and so most of those alive today have some degree of ability. They consider themselves blessed, able to communicate with many low-level devices and robots, though most can't access the great AIs themselves.

What about a distributed emotion race? Alone, they're cold, sociopathic bastards who care only for their own advancement and are hyperintelligent. The more of them within a certain distance, however, causes their emotions to amplify due to.. uh.. hoogieboogie waves from their implants. So a small village might be recognisably human. A city might be like the pre-fall Eldar - ALL RAPE, ALL THE TIME.

>>14618569
there'd likely also be ways to "steal" another persons nanites through some ritual that involves eating them

A setting creation thread? Don't mind if I jump right on in!

So we got token humans, walking squids, and energy legos, huh? We're also talking about nanites (picoes, even?) being used for 'magic' as well as higher AIs being the equivalent of gods. I think I have an idea for another race.

Perhaps there's a sort of mid-way between the nanites more or less controlled by their wielders to produce desired effects and the completely independent AIs which are apart from the lesser races. Why not a sort of hivemind nanite race?

Of course, being nanites, it's hard to be represented in a culturally diverse community as is the Monument, but perhaps they take over bodies of either the recently deceased or those who cannot control them. Nanites that have gained a collective sapience, perhaps.

One snag though - the data required of each nanite to combine and achieve sapience overrode their self-replication functions, so they have come to harbor a strong sense of self-preservation. Though they can inhabit a host body, they face certain dangers. With dead bodies, they obviously don't last as long as living bodies, leaving them to migrate from corpse to corpse to survive. Living bodies are more difficult to maintain, especially if the inhabitant is somehow able to override the nanites' directives with his/her own willpower. If nanites are stuck in a dominant host, they cannot migrate to another body unless directed to by the host.

Just an idea. Swat it down if need be.

>>14618621
SUPTG archive, if possbile.

>>14618621
while good i dont think something like that should be a "player race"

so far we have:
Humans (Sol)
Squid-Waters (Sheliak)
Engery-Legos (Azha)
Centimoths (Zavija)

we need one more and for the record i'm just taking the names of stars that sound cool to be the lineage names

>>14618621
Interesting way to create "undead" and possibly a reason for people to believe in demonic possession. Perhaps the nanites are capable of overwriting one another. Every collective group sees other nanite swarms as potential members of their own collective and will attempt to convert them. A swarm with enough members may grow too large to be housed in a host, becoming what appears to be a liquid metal shapeshifter. Depending on the swarm they may be friendly or antagonistic to other races. Could possibly offer magery to those who seek it, by sending some of their number to work with that person, so long as they do something to help the swarm.

>>14618633
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/14617677
DONE

>>14618665
>>14618668
Yeah, I was thinking of them as a more antagonistic/NPC sort of race.

Ok, so one last PC race. Augmented grey parrots? Smaller than the other races, but flight capable. Absolutely no nanotech/magic. They're programmed to avoid the birds. But the parrots were as smart as children before. Now they're geniuses. Philosophers. The most likely members of the races to figure out what all the magic and gods really are. Not that they can do much with it, everything automatically locking them out of control. So they need the others to work through things.

>>14618704
you're trying to niche them too much and I think we can do better. Plus "Sol" already has its representative species of humans.

what about something that looks like Israfel from evangelion? It's body structure is odd enough but similar enough that it wouldnt be too strange

>>14618749
I don't know. Other than the Azha, there doesn't seem to be something that NOT mostly modeled after Earth life in some way. Balance it out with something almost entirely out of the blue, I would prefer. Problem is that I am having so much trouble coming up with something that isn't mostly based on Earth life...

>Leverve nehica

And suddenly, an NPC name emerges! LeVerve Nehica!

>>14618780
well the body structure of the Sheliak aren't very earth-like at all since its based on the dark warlker from UT3 >>14617932

well you could of course say they are part cephalopod and part crustacean but when you add them together you get something rather unique


really its hard to work beyond what we know and there's bound to be convergent evolution at a lot of points so it isnt too much a stretch to have two bipeds.

>>14618720
My bad. Ok, Humans, Legos, Squid, and Centimoths...and something that won't be too similar to any of those. Something utterly alien. A race capable of living in vacuum if they chose, but require a specific form of radiation that the artificial sun happens to provide. What could they look like? I'm thinking stingray-like bodies to maximize surface area.

>>14618809
That's a good point. I suppose it's just something in me yearning for something just so freakishly different from what we know as sci-fi/fantasy. Well, other than Ramiel, of course. Damn shapeshifting octahedron!

>>14618809
actually i could see the Azha orienting their blocks so they stand like israfel. The bipedal form with 2 arms is pretty convenient.

>>14618818
while cool, they would probably just spend most of their time hanging about in the microgravity regions

they wouldnt have much of a reason to interact with the other 4 races.

>>14618842
>>14618818
I'd say make them a monster/creature race.

>>14618820
well i suppose we can start by deciding its body structure and symmetry

we have 3 that are bilateral. The Sheliak are quadrupeds, humans are bipeds, and the Zavija are have a lot of legs.

The Azha on the other hand can reshape their blocks to suit their needs.

hmm... what about something with radial symmetry?

Posting some aliens, because why not?

How about an amorphous blob race, sort of like a giant amoeba or something? I imagine if a race like that achieved sentience and was roughly organic, it could do some neat things.

If you're looking for anything in particular, let me know and I'll look around for something.

the 5 lineages could just be the 5 big ones that have civilizations with diverse cultures all over the Monument. There very well could be isolated pockets of other sapient species that haven't been able to spread.

>>14618842
Need a reason to work with the others then. Damn, trying to think up justification for something with an extremely alien mindset. Most of them probably do hang out in microgravity regions and near the star. Those that interact with others are on some form of quest. Before the sphere they would be sent into the asteroid fields near their star, now they wander the sphere. The journey is intended to...I have no idea. Running too long on too little sleep. Something alien that only makes sense to their culture.

Off to bed with me. Can't think. Be back later!

>>14618905
they make a good minor species i will say

because i am a whore for metroid prime 2 designs, how a species based on this guy or the quadraxis?

>>14618928

>>14618934

>>14618914
Yeah, I can't think of anything to make them a major race. Something else then, I just feel like pressing on after contributing about half of the Azha and Zavija.

>>14618861

Radial symmetry sounds interesting. Anything further on that race?

Philosopher parrots? Fuck yeah!

>>14618934
>>14618940
that but made of flesh and bone and such... hmm... with an almost plant-like touch so their skin would appear to us as kinda like wood

How about philosopher tube-worms? Maybe more mobile than that, but still the same idea.

>>14618958
using the quadraxis as a base but give it some eye stalks and antennae with the mouth directly on the top of its head so i can bend and swivel it any which way it wants

>>Ctrl+F Strata
>>Nothing

Christ, people, what the fuck? Terry Pratchett's Strata, written back before he became the Discworld guy.

Advanced humans land on a discworld (not Discworld, but prolly would have been had he written it today), where everything's a fantasy setting straight out of Arabian Nights. A few bits of tech they recognize - "Djinn" are really just holographic constructs, endless wine goblets are just a simple matter transmuter - but most of it is *completely* over their heads.

It also has a very interesting side story about how differently evolved beings will basically never understand each other, even if they try their best at acting all genteel and peaceful.

>>14618988
maybe give them 6 legs (or 5 if you are feeling crazy) instead so they can reasonbly use at least 2 of them as arms instead of legs.

The head should be designed in a way to retain radial symmetry so maybe give it a a multipart beak or something

>>14619025
im sure with millions of years on their hands and AIs to act as intermediaries an understand could be achieved

well unless anyone has any better ideas, 5 legged radially symmetric critters seem like a good bet

>>14619108
>>14619069

so far we have:
Humans (Sol)
Squid-Waters (Sheliak)
Engery-Legos (Azha)
Centimoths (Zavija)
5 Legged Radial Symmetric Critters (Tseen'Ke)

>>14619201
I mean squid-walkers

I am to derp to think, going to bed

I know everyone is gone, but I am just going to bump this, as I am afraid that it will 404 before the mourning.

Bump.

Checking in, and good show folks!

how about a sort of living balloon that has tentacles sprouting out in a ring. Think the hanar of mass effect but more radially symmetrical. They would be good at living in lower gravity enviroments.

A long, worm-like fibrous tuber, with vine-ish manipulators things sticking off the top of it. It's brain neurological system is spread throughout a dense stalk that goes through the middle.

For a creature idea, a crustacean with a large sail on it's back, to collect solar energy. They bury themselves underground, leaving only their sails exposed.
On another note, the centimoths remind me of Ruurians, except with all three stages at once?
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ruurian