Difference between revisions of "Nala Sai"

Society, Culture and More

The Ocan culture is based, ultimately, on utilitarism. They are a highly adaptable people with a strong sense of perfection. Ocan dedicate to their tasks until they have perfected themselves into it, only to move on to the next, if they do not decide to spend their lifetimes dedicating to it. They are a peaceful people and often refrain from meddling in the affairs of the universe around them, but sometimes do so when they find it to be gravely necessary. In contrast, they are highly aggressive to attackers and will defend themselves with overwhelming strength when necessary. For most part, this life style was developed only recently, a few hundred years ago. While the Ocan were always a race with sentiency, they lacked a sense of individuality, and the entire race with its whole in mind, rather than the needs and desires of a few. However, at some point they have developed an organ that allowed them to feel individuality, and that mutation ultimately affected the entire race and changed their views to some point. This particular organ can be activated or deactivated at will, and the usage of it is based on freedom, although several situations demand a specific usage. For instance, government decisions are made by leaders while their individualities are "turned off". This ensures they have the best of their people in mind and not their own interests.

Ocan society is divided by utility. Individuals are picked by their aptitudes in order to do what they are best at. If a child is born with a good sense for engineering, it will likely become an engineer. If another is born with a taste for politics, it will likely become involved in the Ocan government. Clans are known to dedicate themselves and their offspring to specific abilities in order to optimize it. There are mining clans, research clans, manufacturing clans, among many other different types. The ones who are seen with utmost respect however is the specific caste of "High Priestesses". Selectively female, the High Priestess caste is the only one allowed to perform far-off space exploration and journeys. While other clans are allowed to explore, they can only do so for a specific distance from the homeworld and are greatly discouraged from traveling further. High Priestesses act as military force, diplomats and explorers, and very few question their motivations and abilities. Other than Warlords, High Priestesses are the only members of the Ocan race allowed to possess warships and fleets. Warlords, on the other hands, are the ultimate defenders of their race, and often maintain their fleets and ships around their holdings in order to act effectively should the homeworld be attacked. The last and most rare caste is that of the "Gravekeepers", individual Ocan with outstanding skills that are tasked with retrieving lost Ocan technology, as well as the bodies of their diseased. Allowing any species to dissect and violate the sanctity of an Ocan's body is often punishable by termination.

Example of an Ocan city, at the surface of their homeworld.

More ample, working castes of the Ocan are composed, for most part, of automated drones, controlled by Overseers. One of the techno-cultural aspects of the Ocan race is their great preference towards usage of drones, for all sorts of activities and purposes. As a result, their very drones are highly more advanced than those of most other races. There is no known sense of poverty and wealth among the Ocan, as all resources necessary for living are distributed equally. The very notion of non-equality can sometimes disturb the Ocan. Despite their choices, Ocan have been encourage in the last millennia to seek personal achievements, growth and development, and more than ever have learned to dedicate themselves to things such as arts and entertainment, thanks to the contact with outsider races. Artists, entertainers and such are highly regarded among the average Ocan members, for the sense of individuality, as well as humor, is a relatively new thing for them. Ocans are often regarded as easily emotional, and so their humor, sense of drama and such are often incredibly subtle. Something too 'outstanding' can sometimes be too overwhelming for them to bear.

Ocan’s Homeworld, Halla Si

The notion of love is also a very new thing to the Ocan, roughly as old as the sense of individuality. They knew what love felt like, but they did not know why they felt it, or the intricacies behind the feeling. Ocan can become attracted to an individual easily, but they can also feel repulsed just as easily, so they are very careful about how they express themselves and how they deal with other races. While Ocan falling in love with other races is not unheard of, it is generally rare, for they are careful in this regard. An Ocan adores its lovers and family deeply, as though they are parts of their own self. The loss of beloved ones to them can be so overbearing that they can easily become inactive and depressive for a time, and when it happens they normally opt to turn off their sense of individuality. In Ocan society, the males are slightly more numerous than females, so it is not unheard of for female Ocan to have more than one mate, and the notion of "cheating" is all but alien for them.

In regards of sexuality, Ocan are somewhat reserved, but also very curious. Due to their physiology, Ocan choose their genders at some point of their 'puberty', a point where their bodies will suffer the necessary changes to appear either male or female. They are subtle but deep with their feelings, especially those of attraction, and the first experience of love for an Ocan can appear rather overwhelming, if not strange for any other race. They enjoy the notion of physical pleasure but are somewhat new to it, and are still developing in that particular regard. What is often seen as 'customary' for other races, is seen as incredibly new and interesting for Ocan, and due to their reservations such leanings are not usually widely spread. Ocan males, when journeying, have more than a few times become very allured by the passions and techniques displayed by females from other races. For Ocan, the act of touching anyone or being touched is already an act of intimacy, so the presence of such gestures generally indicates a considerable interest from their part.

On rare occasions, Ocan cities can function as starships.

Amusingly, Ocan traditional cuisine is regarded as downright awful. Due to a lack of sense of individuality, they simply opted to eat whatever was more efficient for their bodies, which was a sort of grey-colored, highly energetic stew. That stew, while highly nutritive, is often compared to "eating the contents of a car battery" in manners of taste. Ocan cuisine has improved considerably in the last millennia, but they have still many ways to go and are far behind other races in such regards. They often trade resources they consider less valuable for rare and tasty foods. Younger Ocan also enjoy the challenge of becoming drunk.

In regards of technology, Ocan are very powerful beings. They have sufficient technology to have developed a whole artificial planet around a white dwarf. Their technology is often a mix of mechanical and quasi-organical materials, and such combinations allow them to connect directly to their machines. Drone Overseers are known to be connected to dozens of drones at a time, supervising their tasks and transmitting commands. They do not rely on ground vehicles, and instead have a means of short-range teleportation that allows them to move from one place to another in the planet without needing to fly around. They do have vehicles available, but they prefer to not use them. They are pioneers in the usage of energy and in the creation of drones. Almost all of their spaceships happen to simply be carriers for several combat or utility drones, and can easily rebuild and repair those by simply gathering nearby space debris. With the exception of their largest cruiser type, the Kala Ni (translated as "Bulwark), their military vessels follow this doctrine. A Ocan Battlecarrier often carries four or five more drones than the same type of vessel from other races, and their drones are far more intelligent and efficient. While their fleet is not extensive, it is powerful, and is mostly found orbiting around their homeworld.

One of the most common Ocan starship designs, the Suli Si.

Ocan combat doctrine typically relies on using massively overwhelming numbers of drones to assault their enemies, like an unstoppable swarm, though it also varies with other options of equally technological depth. One of the most terrifying stories about the Ocan regards the races who sought to bring them harm and engage them into warfare. When they enter a war, Ocan are ruthlessly efficient, and want to see it done as quickly as possible. As such it is not uncommon for them to rely on mass destruction weapons when such a thing happens. One of the most common weapons in such cases comes in the form of an artificial black hole, brought upon the planets of those who have refused to make peace with them. Once activated, the black hole consumes the world and its species, so that none of its atoms can ever tarnish the universe again. However, despite such displays of force, Ocan are not beyond offering peace agreements or accepting surrenders. The few races that ever waged war against them and surrendered were simply left to their own devises, with no demands other than peace from the Ocan.

Halla Si, their homeworld, is somewhat open for other space travelers, but they are usually required to stay in specific cities built for visitors. These cities are often occupied by a small number of Ocan and a much larger number of drones, where interaction can be limited. Unknown to visitors, those cities can also be jettisoned out in space and destroyed in case of infestation with some manner of plague, or if the Ocan deem it necessary. Naturally, the Ocan living in such cities also happen to possess stronger and well-developed personalities in comparison to most other Ocan, due to their constant contact with outsiders. Those cities double as trading hubs, spaceports and visitor centers.

The Ocan explore the universe, ever eager to learn and meet new species.

The central government of Halla Si is led largely by men, with three representatives of each clan, caste and guild located in the planet. They are responsible for the decisions regarding the race as well as new policies, issuing missions or deciding the next course for specific groups. As such, they are often in direct contact with the Holy Sisterhood, though the latter is not directly subordinate to their governments. The Holy Sisterhood given a wide degree of freedom of operation and choice, so long as they deem it important for their race. As such, their departure as well as return is often met with great optimism, both in hopes that their explorations will bear meaningful fruits as well as to hear what stories they have to share with their race. High Priestesses are normally ranked by the types of their flagships: Catta Si (Battleship), Jutti Si (Battlecruiser), Kumi Si (Destroyer), Suli Si (Battlecarrier), Aia Si (Frigate) and Oki Si (Corvette). They are designated to each type of ship depending on their ability to operate them. Veteran Priestesses are often assigned to more powerful vessels, or command greater drone fleets.

Ocan Biology

Ocan are humanoids, but lack feet and visible ears. They are remarkably slender, with long limbs and plenty of curves, even for males. Sexual dimorphism is subtle among Ocan, and males are often mistaken for females by outsiders. Regarding their senses, rather than listening with their ears, Ocan have an organ inside their heads that allow them to both hear and "feel" their surroundings, giving them a remarkable spatial notion. This organ has a direct connection to the horn-like crest upon their heads. An Ocan can easily navigate in the dark without colliding with anything. Another important organ of their bodies is one responsible for keeping their bodies afloat, adjusting their bonded fields in a way that causes the Ocan to outright ignore gravity, and propel themselves around as they wish. They do not need to breathe and lack noses, but can smell with their mouths - they are often found breathing into their mouths when trying to tell scents apart. Their tongues allow them to both smell and taste, but does not take place in their speech. Their speech is performed by a small organ located just behind their throats. Their voices still come from their mouths, but this makes them able to speak even with their mouths closed. They are also capable of speaking through telepathic means, by sending electric signals into the brain of another. They are highly intelligent and incredibly creative, or have proven to be so after gaining a sense of individuality. The organ responsible for it is contained inside their small brains, a mass roughly the side of an orange located into the hardened flesh of their heads. They lack bones made of calcium, and instead have a structure built with an unspecified material that can be both flexible or harden depending on the necessity. If one tries to break the arm of a Ocan, it will come across the realization that at some point the arm simply bends, rather than breaking, and that will eventually return to its previous position after the stress is gone. Much the same, their flesh hardens and projects a faint energy field capable of protecting them from damage. When exhausted or drained, they cannot project such fields and are considerably fragile. Ocan are not physically strong, but usually employ either their personal drones or nanomachines to lift weights they cannot.

They have organs similar to those of Humans, but on a much smaller scale and with differing degrees of effectiveness. Evolution made it so they need little in order to exist, and so they mostly feed on energy. When eating normal foods, their stomachs simply process that food into pure energy, leaving no remains. As such, their intestines are roughly vestigial organs and have become only a tight tube leading directly to their stomachs. Their lungs are minimal and work differently from that of Humans. Their lungs are mostly used to process scents and to absorb substances from the air that will be turned into further energy. Their bodies regenerate quickly when they have a source of power to drain from, so it is not rare for an Ocan to recover by simply draining energy from something. Those of the Holy Sisterhood are able to connect to machines, so long as those run on electricity, and are often seen as esoteric and magical by other races due to this. They normally carry millions of nanomachines within their bodies in order to perform their duties. One such 'esoteric' ability is that of healing wounds and performing first aid by using those nanomachines on others, which emits a light blue light.

Evolution of Ocan biology, at times, happened naturally, while at others it happened due to their own interference. Ocan bodies are solid and made of cells composed of unknown, exquisite biocells, seeming to be highly designated towards the task of interacting with nearly all type of particles or molecules. It is what enables Ocan to drain energy from their environment, as they basically do it upon a molecular level, with their bodies serving as a manner of sponge. Their energy fields, referred by them as "bonded fields", are a manifestation of a chemical-physical reaction caused by their central cores. The field is a malleable, controllable "bubble" of energy particles, created by the excess radiation released from the Ocan's particular diet. As such, not only the field prevents their radiation from harming other races, but also stabilizes them in a way to make most environments acceptable for Ocan existence. This field allows each individual Ocan a degree of control over their own surrounding particles, permitting them to manipulate them on both micro or macroscopic degrees. An Ocan could accelerate the particles around itself, for instance, creating heat, or they could slow it down, creating a colder environment. Generally, the field will maintain a balance between its surrounding biosystem and the Ocan's health, allowing them to exist without affecting the lands of systems of other species. The same field is what allows them a direct connection to most electric-controlled machines, by creating a "link" between the Ocan's mind and the controlling drive of a device, allowing the Ocan to send direct signals of their own. However, systems such as Firewalls seem to limit that. They are also unable to interact with purely mechanical devices.

Along with the bonded field, another important aspect of Ocan biology is the rich presence of biological nanites. From the very moment they mature into their mother's body, an Ocan is slowly infused with biological nanomachines, which at first numbers on hundreds, but goes up to billions as they become fully-fledged adults. Those biomachines, developing a symbiotic relationship with the Ocan, interact directly to their bonded field and become an extension of the alien's will. They can perform tasks on a molecular scale, or do things as incredible as manifesting into complex objects or even constructs. They also make the process of manipulating energy from their surroundings much faster, and much more precise. While an Ocan does not feel each of them individually, they are able to communicate with "groups" of them, generally small swarms commanded by a single mind. They have been present at Ocan evolution for so long that at this point they are seen as a direct part of their own biology. Under a microscope, each of those nanites appears like a biological cell, with a distant resemblance to a prokaryotic cell, but bearing longer Pili (tendril-like structures). By varying the density of their formations, those nanites are capable of forming anything, from hard to soft structures, and can even cause perceptory effects such as the change of color. The scale of those nanites can vary, and their size range can vary from nanoscaled to femtometric.

With how their biomolecules are designed, Ocan have little loss of energy, or of substances. Their energetic cell composition allows them to survive the harsh environment of space, even inhabit the surrounding area of a Dwarf Star, without much difficulty. Ocan do not typically store fluids, but are capable of producing and releasing them depending on necessity. For instance, an Ocan's mouth does not produce saliva all the time, and only does so when they happen to be eating something. Their bodies are generally able to adapt to the pressure of different environments without being harmed, all in order to better survive the harshness of space.

Ocan are only compatible with their own race and cannot bear children from other races, as far as they are aware. They possess one vagina or penis, as well as breasts (in case of females). Their females look incredibly curvaceous, while their males are less so but still bear some considerable degree of femininity in their features. Males do not have testicles, and those are contained inside, where the wombs of their females are located, and their penises are usually hidden within themselves until aroused. The womb of a female is small, but highly expansive, and the period a child remains within its mother is roughly two months. Despite all that, they are not incredibly fertile, and reproduction tends to be slow for Ocan. This also happens due to their lack of need to reproduce, as they are not an expansive race. Their children are often very small, roughly half the size of a Human's, but they grow in size quickly once outside of their mother's wombs. Ocan children more closely resemble Ocan ancestors, having something akin to a long, wide tail serving as their legs, rather than two separated limbs. As they grow, the tail splits in two parts, and thus forms their legs. Their hands as adults have four fingers, but as a child there are only two. The largest of them eventually splits into further fingers as they grow into adulthood. An Ocan can temporarily take traits from the opposite gender if it so wishes, and it allows them to develop them members necessary for reproduction. As such, Ocan choices on romantic partners as well as their own genders happens more as a point of aesthetic preference rather than a biological necessity.

Their Planet

Halla Si is their homeworld, in more ways than one. It is a massive superstructure built around a white dwarf that serves both the purpose of stabilizing the star as well as draining its excess radiation. The planet itself is covered in sectors that can be classified as cities, space stations, and even "holdings" of specific clans. The most prestigious positions are located closer to the structure's core, just beneath the protective layers that prevent excess radiation from passing to the outside. Due to abundance of space and relatively small population, the Ocan often have massive homes, and their structures are normally regarded by other races as excessively large. Even something as small as a humble home is about as large as what a Human would have for a mansion. Naturally, the planet is occupied not only by the Ocan, but also by the countless drones. Automated drones perform most of the maintenance, repairs, supply gathering and other tasks. The planetary defenses are automated, but ultimately commanded by Ocan in charge of such. The planet generates almost no gravity despite its mass, due to the unseen planetary shield located across the superstructure's "atmosphere". It prevents Halla Si from interfering with the orbit and gravity of other spatial bodies as it passes close to them. The shield is also capable of generating a form of camouflague, hiding them from visual contact. It however does not hide its energy signature and detection to other types of sensors. Halla Si’s surface is designed as a modular shell of sorts, with each massive city actually being a docked “spaceship” of sorts, allowing them to be detached from the main shell of the planet in extreme emergencies. Typically, it is only done in situations where the planet is at great risk.

Powers, Skills, and Attributes

Typical to Ocan, Nala Sai is capable of absorbing and releasing large amounts of energy, as well as manipulating it with the help of her bounded field. The field itself represents an excess of energy released from a specific organ within her body, and tends to increase or decreasing depending on how much energy she has fed from. Within the field, she can easily manipulate energy of several different sources, by simply converting it into raw, controllable energy, and controlling it as she sees fit. This allows her to utilize a vast array of offensive, defensive and supportive skills, and makes her into a truly formidable hero when provoked into a fight. She tends to be even stronger upon locations where she can easily draw more energy upon herself, expanding her own bonded field and as such, the potential range of her abilities. The extent of this ability is vast, as it allows her to control energy down to a molecular level. As such, sometimes the physical and chemical reactions enacted by such give the impression that Nala has a great number of different abilities. By using energy to accelerate, decelerate or alter the configuration of the molecules within her field, she can perform effects such as fire, ice and electricity attacks. A sharp eye however can notice that all of these effects have a root on the energy-manipulating ability, as they wouldn't occur without it directly affecting her environment. As a natural ability to the Ocan, Nala can gather immense amounts of energy across the length of her horn, using it to fire beams of incredibly destructive power. The photonic reaction usually occurs far faster than any of their other skills, and tends to be a favored defensive means for the species when they have little time to bother thinking of any other tactic.

Along with such, she can use the same energy and field to control the immense amount of nanites that inhabit her body. Those nanites range from nanomachines to even smaller sizes, vastly outclassing Earth technology in that particular field. Those nanites share a number of skills with Nala, mostly in the means of carrying their own miniature ability to control and harness raw energy. By doing so, they can be utilized for all manner of skills, but more often than not tend to join themselves in group in order to temporarily create mechanical constructs, such as robots, drones, heavy guns, projectiles and so on. They can be destroyed, but tend to easily multiply, as excess energy leads those nanites to build other companions with their excess. They tend to be invisible to the naked eye of most species. Due to the very specific nature of the Ocan, they are immune to mind-control spells, as well as several types of magic, especially those who affect souls. Ocan don't actually have souls or spirits, so they cannot be affected by things that would normally affect those. Ultimately, Nala's class of powers rank very high, and make her an incredibly competent foe. She is however still bound to certain weaknesses, if those are eventually discovered.

Relationships

Lover

• Nala currently has no lovers or companions of the sorts. While she does engage in casual acts every now and then, she has yet to find someone to consider a mate or lover.

Friends/Allies

• None yet.

General Perception

Trivia