Exotae (World Guide, Sapient Species) (Patreon)

While the vast majority of sapient organisms make their homes on reasonably hospitable planets, the truly alien exotae make their homes in the lifeless vacuum of space. Found thought a long belt of star systems connecting the Marian Drift Prefecture with the Imperial Core, their hives resemble large asteroids or small moonlets, covered with dull gray dust and pockmarked with craters large and small. Were one to peel away the innocent looking mineral surface, one would discover a living mass of dark gray lumps, off-white sinews, and throbbing reservoirs of slightly luminous green fluid. Each hive has several portals through which its members can enter and exit the hive, though only the fleshy, crater-like main orifice is generally visible to the more careful of observers.

Exotae exist in what is arguably the most niche of niches for a predatory organism. Their principle prey consists of asteroid miners. They possess a disturbingly specific ability to sense other sapients’ intention to mine asteroids within their territory, and use this information to set up highly effective ambushes in places generally thought to be free of exotae presence.

Once attacked, few can escape the exotae. Generally, the exotae do not actually attempt to kill their victims. Instead, they use their psychic powers along with their physical prowess to subdue as many victims as they can. These ‘lucky’ victims are packed into living, life sustaining sacs for the long flight back to the hive. Those putting up too effective a fight are killed and promptly consumed as sustenance. Survivors are rare, and generally only those who happen to have the technological means to resist their attacks with sufficient endurance to present the attacking exotae with the prospect of military grade reinforcement arriving before they can return to their hive.

In addition to the more vulnerable space miners, exotae are known to have a lesser taste for support ship crew, surveyors, and incautious recreational sailors who happen to blunder into their territory. Other vessels which tend to operate with shields always active are largely ignored. More heavily armed merchantmen and military units are actively avoided.

No evidence of the exotae hunting any sort of natural vacuum inhabiting prey has been found to date. This, combined with the strange physical nature of their reproductive process, has led scientists to the conclusion that the exotae are artificially engineered organisms. It is hypothesized that the creatures were intended to act as strategic weapons by some unknown ancient civilization against an equally unknown rival, denying them access to the necessary resources with which to build effective spaceborne defences.

The exotae themselves appear as hunched over demi-humanoids with rumpled, dark gray skin largely covered with off-white plates of extremely hard chitin. Their hands and feet have three digits each, all of which are adorned with massive chitin claws. Their heads somewhat resemble forward facing hatchet blades, with no visible eyes, ears, or other sensory organs. Their mouth is generally visible only as a vertical crease along the edge of the ‘blade’. This only opens when the creature faces serious opposition, revealing a vast array of razor sharp teeth, and a pair of long, prehensile tentacle-tongues that can grab and pull threats into the creature’s mouth.

The exotae generally avoid physical combat unless it is required in the attempt to secure victims for the hive, or kill and consume genuine threats. Instead, they attempt to subdue their victims in a far more insidious fashion. Exotae can focus their psychic powers on a single victim from a considerable distance. That victim quickly finds themselves daydreaming about something they particularly enjoy. Generally, such victims give in to the dream quite quickly, falling into a strange, waking-lucid-dream-reverie that miners call ‘the black bliss’. Others try to focus on their work, and sometimes manage to resist the deeper dream state. Few recognize what’s happening, but those that do have the chance to take defensive measures, provided that they have the tools at hand.

Exotae are extraordinarily strong in all physical respects. When necessary to eliminate a threat, they are fully capable of tearing through just about any protective clothing that might be found in the average spacefarer’s inventory. They are even capable of quickly shredding the best suits of light unshielded power armor, though heavier and militarized types are generally impermeable to their physical attacks. They will actively avoid entering into the proximity of active energy shields, which seem to interfere with their senses and psychic powers. This can be used to the defender’s advantage, and with a bit of luck, a miner can save themselves by holing up inside of a sturdy confined space with a shield unit blocking the entry.

Exotae are largely immune to damage from anything less than a medium caliber armor piercing ballistic weapon. Energy weapons are more effective against an exotae’s softer gray flesh, but their chitin is highly ablative. Highass plasma projecting weapons are generally the most effective personal weapons against exotae, though numerous hits are generally required to disable or kill one, as they are incapable of feeling pain, and generally disregard any injury that isn’t sufficiently drestructive to physically hobble them. Only light anti-vehicle weapons or larger are generally guaranteed to disable an exotae with a single hit, and these are rarely available on the extremely short notice the creatures tend to provide of their pending attacks.

If the tendency of the exotae to shred and consume pestersome victims who insist on resisting a bit too effectively is disturbing, what the creatures do to those brought back to their hive is exponentially more so. Unlike virtually every other known sapient species, exotae are not born as complete living organisms. Instead, they are born from the living flesh of the hive as a collection of sections resembling skin-tight pieces of dark gray clothing adorned with chunks of off-white, chitinous armor. An errant suit might well be mistaken as a suit of inert organic armor by the uneducated or unwary. These suits are far from inert, however. Their true nature is only revealed as the pieces are put on, and the exotate make very sure that each and every one of their captives gets themselves forced into a full set at the earliest possibly opportunity.

Each captive acquired during an exotae attack is placed into a small, private, pressurized node near the center of the hive. While still consumed by the black bliss, their clothing is completely removed by claw, flesh sparing acid, or both. Once this is complete, they awake from their dream, floating in zero gravity, completely naked, and held firmly in the grasp of two of their exotae captors.

Where resistance was death outside the hive, within the hive resistance is actively encouraged by the exotae. They seem to delight in each captive’s attempts to free themselves, and escape the ministrations of the third exotae present, who’s sole duty is to force the victim to allow it to surround her with the suit’s five separate sections. In what seems to be a purely masochistic tendency, the arms and legs are forced on first, giving the captive a considerable boost to arm and leg strength, as well ass access to the same chitinous claws as her captors. Only then will the creature attempt to apply the core bodysuit, which splits open at the neck and shoulders for ‘easy entry’.

The moment any section of an exotae suit is fully in place upon a captive’s body, it instantly adheres to the covered area of skin. In a process that most describe as both deeply unsettling and decidedly uncomfortable, the section numbs and then rapidly digests the affected body part. As the flesh dissolves, the nutrients released fuel the development of entirely new muscles, structures, and internal organs. These replace the consumed originals with such rapidity that no particularly noticeable interruption of the wearer’s life processes occurs, regardless of exactly what is being ‘transformed’.

Each section of the exotae suit provides its victim with some immediate tangible benefits. Further benefits come from combinations of sections. The core bodysuit increases its victim’s health and endurance by three standard relative levels (SRLs) each. The arms each increase their victim’s overall strength and agility by one SRL, while legs each increase the victim’s overall strength by one SRL, and movement speed by two SRLs. Core and arms together increase the victim’s upper body strength by an additional one SRL, while core and legs increase lower body strength by an additional one SRL. A full suit allows the victimto fly in zero gravity in almost arbitrary fashion with a movement SRL sixlevels higher than ground movement. It also allows the victim to run on all fours, adding an additional two SRLs to ground movement.

Once suiting is complete, each captive is snatched by a tentacle and held down on a leather mound while their exotae captors exit the node. They remain bound until all of the other victims of the same attack are fully suited. Once this is done, the mound opens up into an orifice, and the tentacle drags the captive through, and tosses them into a larger, communal node with all of their fellow victims.

In the presence of any being of compatible physical gender, a exotae suit victim’s desire to copulate is considerable. In the presence of another compatible suit victim, the desire becomes an overpowering compulsion. This need to procreate has nothing to do with actual procreation, however. Instead, it is both the principle means by which the hive judges which prospective new members are worthy, and by which the formation of the final suit element, the head, is triggered.

Each captive within the central node is largely judged by the number of times he or she can successfully copulate with their fellow captives, though some may enter the node with an advantage over others. The two of each physical gender who resisted being forced into their exotae suits most fiercely are treated as if they had already copulated twice. If they were particularly fierce, but gave in as the core bodysuit was nearly in position, they might be counted as having an additional copulation.

Beyond the initial pre-judgement, each copulation with a unique individual would carry a high degree of weight. Repeat copulations with a single individual would count far less. Fighting to access a new mate would add a bit of a bonus to a successful copulation.

After about twenty minutes, a tentacle will lash out into the communal nodeand drag the least successful individual into a fleshy mouth, inside which they will be rapidly, and painlessly dissolved into pure nutrients. For every ten minutes thereafter, the tentacle takes a new victim. If a particular captive is the last of their physical gender in the node, then they will get a free pass from that point forward. The process will only end when roughly a third of the group, or only one of eachphysical genderremain, whichever is larger.

As the hive judges its new prospects, their suits begin to grow up around theirheads. Each successful copulation advances the growthtwo or three centimeters. At first this growth spreads up the back and over the top, until it reaches about a third of the way down the captive’s forehead. After this, the growth spreads over the sides, and stops only when it’s covered about half of the captive’s cheeks. If the hive hasn’t had its fill of unworthy prospects yet, no further growth will take place.

Once the hive is done consuming unwanted captives, the growth of the suit over each captive’s face will recommence. It only takes a few further copulations to cover the captive’s face and form the ‘hatchet’ in front of it. The final transformation of the captive’s head is thus triggered,in the same manner as the original sections transformed the remainder of their body.

Thenew exotae can feel her brain dissolving in an intensely visceral kaleidoscope of brightly colored smells, meaty tasting sounds, and the terrifying feel of the newly completed body that her rapidly liquefying gray matter now inhabits. Despite the nature of the physical process, the new monster does not experience death. Instead, what was simply dissolved into what now is. All personality and memory is gone, replaced by the initial genetic memory common to all exotae. As this process completes, the physical and mental ratings effectively reset to those common to all newly created exotae. As a last act in the new creature’s intensely physical drama, its organs of physical gender dissolve, leaving it completely sexless.

New exotae almost always join their older companions in hibernation, unless another raid is about to begin. It is believed that all wild exotae hibernate for the majority of the lives in order to pass time and conserve resources. Exotae are believed to live up to 80 years, though the exact lifespan of exotae in the wild is uncertain.

Every so often, the exotae will leave one or more of their suits in places where random interlopers might discover them. This is generally done in places where an actual attack would be too dangerous, but where the hive’s desire to snare victims into some manner of exotae existence is just too great to completely ignore. As a result, quite a number of such suits have found their way onto the open market over the years, for better or for worse.

While most of these stray exotae suits vanish into the hands of anonymous buyers, with unknown results, a few brave souls periodically don a suit ‘for science’. It is from these individuals that information about the physical sensations of the resulting transfiguration has been gained, but their rare, individual experiences have inevitably raised more questions than answers. Copulation with any partner is sufficient to bring their transformation to completion. The resulting ‘free’ exotae still loses all vestige of their former selves, and becomes an entirely new being. Unlike their wild counterparts, however, free exotae have far more civilized inclinations.

Free exotae lack any of the bestial tendencies which define their wild siblings. They possess an innate, rudimentary ability to communicate, conducted through psychically projected impressions and emotions. At the same time, the seem to lack the ability to manipulate the minds of others, or perhaps merely the lack of any inclination to do so. They are capable of working certain jobs and can live the sort of ‘normal’ life that such beings of limited learned knowledge and ability to communicate can be helped to live in modern society.

Exotae suits can periodically be acquired for the considerable sum of ¢25,000 in the shadier regions of the open market. XenoExotic has a standing offer of ¢100,000 each for up to ten individuals willing to don a suit and copulate to completion on film.