Zithir (Human perspective)

(The creatures I'm writing about belong in he same world as the planets cryolith, Behemoth, Cauldron, etc., hopefully for a future mod.  To make things a bit more interesting, I'll try and describe the three species involved from each other's point of view, although the "Human" perspective will be the most basic.)

First Glance

Scouting parties on Phobis Terra at first did not notice anything unusual about the Zithir.  With the wide diversity of life on Phobis Terra, the Zithir appeared to be nothing more than another stragne social animal when first spotted.  In addition, Zithir parties were quite good at sensing that people were approaching, and often hid or ran away before details could be noticed.

Zithir on Cryolith and Cauldron were far easier to spot, due to the lack of other life on those planets. Because of the protective materials they wore, however, those Zithir were often mistaken for other human groups, and it took some more close encounters, and many failed communication attempts, to realize that they were a different type of life form.

As contact became more common, Zithir gained a reputation for rapidly learning human mannerisms, and for being the less aggressive of the two alien species landed in this system.  Zithir seemed to be able to sense quite easily the fear and curiosity of human visitors, and to quickly figure out how to react in nonthreatening ways.  As contact increased, Zithir communication styles were worked out, more contact was established, and deatils of their society and biology were opened to human colonists.

Anatomy/Biology

Zithir, in a general sense, resemble humans.  They walk upright on two legs, have two arms, with hand like features at the end, and have a head at the top with eyes, most of the nervous system, and other sensory organs.  They are on average much smaller than humans, about half the weight and somewhat shorter, with a thin appearance.  Their most distinctive features are a set of two large, and several smaller, protrusions from their heads.  These features are extensions of their brains, housing structures responsible for their tremendous psychic and empathetic abilities.  The larger protrusions appear as a set of lumpy antlers, and contain numerous distinct nerve clusters, while the smaller protrusions resemble tentacles, and act as sensors.

The most astounding, and unusual, feature of the Zithir are their psychic and future sensing abilities.  All Zithir are born with a limited, but trainable, ability to sense emotions in any creatures around them, and an ability to sense events in both the past and future.  The discovery and acceptance of these abilities (As opposed to explanations such as strong intuition and/or unusual sensitivity similar to some Earth animals) was a long and difficult process, involving numerous experiments and alternative explanations, and scientists are still struggling to explain how exactly the Zithir do it, and what the implications are for the physical universe.  What is known is that these abilities mostly come from the Zithir's head appendages, with the smaller tentacle appendages involved in somehow sensing outside stimuli to reveal emotions, while the larger, lumpy antler protrusions are involved in time sensing through their numerous nerve clusters.  Zithir main brains, in addition to other functions, coordinate these processes, and make sense of the input.  These abilties, and their implications, are the greatest influence on how the Zithir form societies, and interact with the rest of the world.

Zithir biochemistry uses some materials in common with human biochemistry, but more colplex molecules and molecular building blocks are often different.   While humans can partially digest a small fraction of Zithir food, and vice versa, eating foods of another species is not recommended as the nutrients that can be extracted are poor and highly limited, with poisoning always a possibility.  Some Zithir soil organisms, bacteria, and non-moving life does combine well with human life for fertilizing soil, and crop rotation agreements are often established between Zithir and Human groups on good terms with each other.  Zithir phychic appendages require enormous amounts of energy to function, so despite their smaller size, Zithir typically require a larger amount of energy than an equivalent human would.  However, they require less building material nutrients (Equivalent to proteins, some minerals, etc.) to maintain their bodies.

Zithir bodies are known to be highly fragile, inujuring easily, healing much more slowly, and are highly sensitive to poisons.  It seems the Zithir future sensing abilities allow them to avoid danger more easily than other creatures might, and can as a result avoid injuries rather than having to take them.  Zithir bones are weak enough that simply falling down often fractures them, while cuts and bruises apart from the very smallest require Zithir to reduce activity significantly, and be careful to avoid further injury.  Because of this fragility, correctly managed physical training is a life or death issue for young Zithir and Zithir in physically demanding roles, as without it, day to day physical activity alone will cause life threatening fractures and injuries, let alone the more physically demanding roles Zithir may play.  Even with all these dangers, the most feared injury to almost all Zithir is the loss or damage to their head appendages.  Once functions of these appendages is lost, it never returns, even with practice and training, and Zithir who loose those abilities find themselves unable to interact with, and usually cut off from, society.  Zithir call them :unconnected".

Government/Social Organization

Zithir societies are the most close knit of the all three colonizing species in this system, due to the ability to directly sense emotions.  Individual crimes happen rarely enough to be strange stories, as criminals would sense the damage they do much more readily, and others would easily be able to figure out who did it after it occurred.  Zithir working groups rarely encounter interpersonal issues, for similar reasons, and small such groups work together very smoothly.  Groups of Zithir up to around 1000 or so can often manage a large number of day to day affairs without using more formal structures, simply relying on the basic emotional sensing most share.

Somewhat frustratingly for scientists or anyone who must communicate with a Zithir, the strong emotional connection seems to lead to Zithir communication being very bare bones, and hard to detect patterns in.  Since Zithir can sense emotions directly, face to face communication typically leaves out any signals, such as voice tones or body language, that is common in other species.  Although Zithir languages do have such words for longer term communication, they did not use these in the small groups originally studied by scientists, in in interactions with humans Zithir will often forget such signals unless very experienced already.

On larger scales, or for tasks where simple emotional sensing or direct communication is not enough, Zithir must organize more structure.  Three main structures are by far the most common, and large Zithir societies have all of them to some extent.  Religious authorities, in charge of preserving traditions, accumulate knowledge from past events, and often communicate with powerful Zithir individuals or groups from the past, and this information is used for present day purposes.  Zithir societies also organize training, and/or special events, where members can focus better on sensing emotions, and even direct thoughts, of other members of society. These gathering, often called "communes" by humans, allow the Zithir to coordinate much larger groups, and to rapidly share and put together large amounts of information from throughout the society.  Finally, certain Zithir within soceity are usually much more skilled at future sensing than others, and these Zithir, once they prove themselves, become what humans often call "prophets" or "demagogues", with widespread influence and are given heavy decision making responsibility.

Zithir Religion

Unlike for humans, all Zithir societies seem to follow the same religion.  furthermore, all descriptions of Zithir history suggest that their style of religion was established early, with only 1-2 consistent stories of ancient competing beliefs, no stories of enemy cultures that were defeated as a victory for their current system, and no schisms ever talked about in any form.  While some historians speculate that the Zithir societies at some point managed to forget memories of previous religions, the Zithir do not generally treat the rest of their history in this way, and evidence for the loss of records is consistently nonexistent.

Zithir religion mostly revolves around archives, and communications with powerful individuals or groups in the past.  Different sets of priests are in charge of these functions, but any Zithir within a particular group can commune with the past, and archives are typically open to anyone who wishes to read them.  From these sources, rules are made, and questions answered, for the present day (when the question was asked.)  Rules made in this way are not expected to be timeless or consistent, however, with most rapidly being discarded after a few months or so.  A few societal rules, however, have lasted through generations, and the ones who discovered them are highly celebrated by the Zithir.  However, even these rules are expected to be changed or lost at some point.

This communing method is also used to answer questions about how the universe works, how it was formed, and philosophically related questions.  The Zithir religion's answers to these sorts of questions, as with their laws, are often different from time to time, although some answers are broadly consistent over time.  Most Zithir do not think of the universe as being heavily controlled by particular gods, but think some being or beings have some influence/.  Some sort of afterlife is expected, but the exact form is unknown, and details change from time to time and group to group.

The exact method of communicating is not something scientists have determined, nor do the Zithir understand how it works.  The methods currently used have been built up over a long period of time, and appear to focus the Zithir's own ability to sense different points in time.  What is known from current day Zithir prophets/demagogues and strong groups are that questions do seem to be sensed from the future, but record keeping of such communications has shown that they are not enough to fully explain expected future communications.  Fakery or coincidence is expected at points, but the Zithir themselves do not show evidence of lying, and the information itself shows no differences in response from confirmed communication.

Zithir religion occasionally makes use of present day prophets/demagogues to answer these sorts of questions, and prophets from the past are by far the most common group that priests communicate with.  In the early days of the religion, such communication was far more common, but as archives and communication abilities increased, religion had much more to draw from, and present day communication became much more rare. 

Because present day profits, and large communes, are the main ways Zithir perform other functions such as science, engineering, craftsmanship, etc., Zithir religious archives and past communication are a vital part of these activities as well.  Through these, traditions and knowledge are preserved, and can be consulted, greatly assisting present day work.

The differences between Zithir and Human religions have contributed to numerous conflicts and diplomatic/trade incidents.  Human religious leaders, particularly monotheistic ones, view the Zithir rituals as Satan driven, highly resembling pagan rituals struggled against in the past.  Particularly unfortunate incidents have occurred where Zithir have attempted to communicate with important religious figures, such as Jesus or Buddha, or with an actual god, and have been unable to, angering members of those religions.  While others suspect that something special about Zithir only is what allows such communication, moods after these events are worsened.  Athiests, on the other hand, have struggled to explain or understand evidence of why particular Zithir religious rituals do seem ot work, even when evidence is otherwise lacking.  Zithir are often surprised at human tendencies to maintain laws for long periods of time, and have often broken relations with groups out of disagreements over this.

Zithir Science and Technology

While Zithir amaze with their psychic and communication abilities, they have enormous difficulty with the type of thinking needed for sciences, engineering, craftsmanship, or other such disciplines.  When isolated from other members of society, or sources of information, Zithir resort to blindly trying different methods to solve a problem, and do not seem to learn patterns from what does and does not work.  On a societal level, as a result, Zithir science, engineering, design, and other such processes are slow and painful, relying greatly on the use of religious archives, and requiring powerful prophets/demagogues to sense the future outcomes of any new designs.  Over time, these methods have accumulated a large body of knowledge and tools that the Zithir can call on, but new developments are always tricky for them.

Surprisingly, despite the Zithir need to directly copy designs, Zithir tools and equipment are generally less reliable than that from humans.  It seems, while Zithir try to copy a design exactly, they may miss important outside conditions, or important details, in why the design works, so attempts to replicate something without those details often go wrong.  Human tools are considered highly valuable among the Zithir for this reason.

The one advantage Zithir science and technology has over Human science and technology is the ability to retain information.  With Zithir communing as a way for society members to share information, and religious rituals allowing communication with the past, loosing knowledge is extraordinarily rare.  Examples are known throughout Zithir society, and major struggles have been undertaken to rediscover this knowledge.

Zithir lack of systematic thinking also shows itself in society organization.  Laws among the Zithir are not consistent and do not last long, nor are they expected to be, and Zithir almost never consider it until interacting wit humans.  Trade is largely done through barter, or by gifting, and large organizations are usually run informally, without specific rules or systems in place to organize them.  Zithir society organizations (Religion, communing, and prophets/demagogues), and ability to share emotions more generally, mean that these losses do not hurt Zithir society, and including such systems would actually interfere with the society.  However, interactions with, and understand of, human organizations are greatly impeded by these lacks.

Zithir Warfare

Like all groups who have settled this system, war has been common from early periods within Zithir society.  While conflict with Zithir scouting groups was uncommon, it did occur from time to time, and in those fights the Zithir proved formidable opponents.

Fighting among Zithir is almost unknown between small groups, but among larger groups, fighting becomes much more common.   When it does occur amongst the Zithir, warfare is frighteningly destructive, much more so than might be expected in human based warfare.  Because of the ways emotions within the Zithir spread and enhance themselves, any feelings of conflict or dislike that lead to a war can quickly spread throughout a society, than reinforce themselves to become feelings of extreme hatred. As a result, Zithir wars are far more intense than human wars, with what would be simple border disputes becoming large scale invasions, and large scale invasions becoming total wars.  Zithir who succeed in an attack are known to take no prisoners, and to utterly destroy what they are attacking.  Stopping wars requires heavy involvement and effort, either an overwhelming flood of emotion from victims, enough to stop the flood from attackers, a large amount of religious communications, or heavy involvement by third party peacekeepers can stop these wars.

Zithir history is filled with tales of such extreme fighting, either by disagreeing prophets, resource disputes, occasionally disputes religious laws, or simply large groups where some disagreement happened to build on itself.  Zithir themselves in communications with were amazed that the species had survived after hearing about the numerous wars in human history, only to be further surprised by how quickly some of them seem to have stopped.

Zithir armies do not have the equipment or organization that a human army might, but make up for it with their unique psychic abilities.  The Zithir ability to sense the future makes them dangerous enemies in fast moving, split second combat, where they can sense attacks coming and react much faster than other creatures or aliens might, and also easily find weak spots quickly on their own.  Soldiers are very good at sensing leaders within enemies, or enemies that others look up to, and targetting those first.  Though Zithir equipment is generally poor quality, they can compensate somewhat using a sense of the future.  Finally, the strong bonds within any Zithir group, and ability to read emotions, greatly assist in cohesion.


Explanation

Since this is a planned game mod, the three species within it need to be roughly equally power, but different, in order to be interesting.  For this reason, I'm having each of the three species within this system have a different strength:  Humans are the systematic thinkers, resulting in more effective engineering, science, lawmaking, and such, Zithir get the psychic abilities, and are better with religion, some types of social organization, and seeing some future actions, while the third is going to be biologically adaptable.

Within this particular universe, I'm assuming that the Zithir actually have the best grasp on how religion works, but with the assumption that human religion has been getting more accurate over time, so the religion itself, as I flesh it out, should "feel' more later human religions (Buddhists, the big monotheistic ones, etc.) than earlier ones (Polytheistic ones), but still quite different overall.