Unreviewed Zuti-zudi

[FN-999 (restored)]

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION

• Intent: To make a unique, reclusive alien species native to one of Caragach’s moons.
• Image Credit: Alien Politician by Oliver Schumann
• Canon: N/A
• Permissions: N/A
• Links: Caragach

GENERAL INFORMATION

• Name: Zuti-zudi
• Designation: Sentient
• Origins: Malkin (fourth moon of Caragach)
• Average Lifespan: 3 years (natural lifespan), immortal with sufficient maintenance (post-technofusion)
• Estimated Population: Planetary (~84 million as of 905 ABY, with 97% on Malkin)
• Description: The Zuti-Zudi are a tall, reedy nonhuman sentient species native to Malkin, Caragach’s fourth moon. Reclusive and short-lived, Zuti-Zudi spend most of their collective energy developing advanced biotechnology, chiefly to extend their lifespans. Through a process translated as “technofusion”, most adult Zuti-zudi have their brain, nerves, and main arteries transferred into a mechanical body, making them nearly biologically immortal at the cost of their high intellect.

PHYSICAL INFORMATION

• Breathes: Type I, N/A (post-technofusion)
• Average Height of Adults: 2.3m (female), 2.5m (male)
• Average Length of Adults: 19 cm (female), 17cm (male)
• Skin color: Pink, turquoise cranial swell
• Hair color: N/A
• Distinctions: All Zuti-zudi have tall, spindly frames, backwards-bending knees, purplish skin, and have sensory antenna instead of hair follicles. Zuti-zudi exhibit moderate sexual dimorphism, with males generally being taller and thinner than shorter, wider females. Females can reproduce very rapidly after reaching maturity at a rate of up to 1 live birth every two months. Young Zuti-zudi mature at an incredibly fast speed compared to most other sentient beings, reaching an adult physical and mental state by the time they are one and a half years old. Past two and a half years of age, the skin and muscles, and internal tissues of all Zuti-zudi quickly begin degrading at a cellular level, giving them at most another two years to live without technofusion before their bodies can no longer sustain them.
• Races: A small minority of Zuti-zudi have settled down on Caragach itself and over millennia have evolved subtle physical differences compared to their Malkin cousins. Caragachi Zuti-zudi are on average around 10 cm shorter and have darker skin than their Malkin counterparts.
• Force Sensitivity: Rare (natural), Non-Sensitive (post-transference)

Strengths:

• Natural Genius: Though their lives may be fleeting, fully organic Zuti-zudi are extremely intelligent and have perfect memories, allowing them to quickly master nearly any intellectual field of study they choose to pursue.
• Still I Stand: After technofusion, Zuti-zudi are effectively immortal as long as their mechanical body is maintained and their nutrient needs are met.

Weaknesses:

• Expiration Date: By far the greatest burden to the Zuti-zudi is their short lifespan. Even the healthiest members of their species can at best hope to reach four years of age without technofusion.
• Fragile: In their fully organic form, Zuti-zudi are soft-skinned and have long, thin bones that can easily be broken. Even after technofusion, Zuti-zudi remain vulnerable, especially to EMP attacks that can disable the life support in their mechanical bodies.
• Brain Fog: After technofusion, Zuti-zudi lose their natural genius and develop slower reflexes.

CULTURE

• Diet: In their natural form, Zuti-zudi are herbivores whose broad, fused teeth allow them to excel at crunching through the hard-shelled fruit commonly found on Malkin. Once they undergo technofusion, Zuti-zudi instead have nutrients and vitamins pumped directly into their bloodstream.
• Communication: Zuti-zudi have advanced vocal cords and communicate primarily through Taz, their native language. After technofusion where their vocal cords are discarded, Zuti-zudi are still able to speak thanks to voice emulators that receive neural impulses from their brains. Though most Zuti-zudi speak Taz, they are capable of speaking other languages and many diplomats, business executives, and government officials are fluent in Galactic Basic.
• Technology level: Though most Zuti-zudi tech is at Galactic Standard, they have exceeded the standard rate of innovation in the field of biotechnology. In their quest to prolong their painfully short lifespans, the Zuti-zudi have mastered the fields of implants, bionics, and prosthetics to the point where they can surgically transfer their consciousness into a mechanical body and do so on an industrial scale. Their expertise in biotechnology also extends to bioweapons research and even cloning operations.
• Religion/Beliefs: Ever since the Zuti-zudi first acquired sentience, the main goal and greatest challenge of the species has been overcoming their short lifespan. It was to this end that the Zuti-zudi developed their society in the hopes of creating technology capable of extending their lives. Every new innovation and advancement made by the Zuti-zudi is in one way or another a step towards a longer life. Even with the invention of technofusion, the Zuti-zudi are not yet satisfied, and the brightest among them seek to truly perfect technofusion so that they can retain their genius and even preserve traits such as Force sensitivity.
• General behavior: Until the moment of technofusion, Zuti-zudi life is an incredibly hectic and rushed affair. Within days of birth, young Zuti-zudi are taken to schools to discover their talents. They will study their chosen path for the next year until they reach fertile age. Upon becoming fertile, Zuti-zudi will be paired up by their local authorities, though often with the say of the paired Zuti-zudi themselves. Breeding is a quick affair and is carried out until the pair produce at least four children, at which point the Zuti-zudi can choose to either take technofusion or selflessly live a short organic life to use their natural genius for the benefit of the species. After technofusion, Zuti-zudi behavior is almost completely reversed. Technofused Zuti-zudi will toil for decades or even centuries on a single task, serving as the essential bureaucrats, laborers, and researchers ensuring that Zuti-zudi society continues to develop.

HISTORICAL INFORMATION

The Zuti-Zudi first acquired sentience on the planet Caragach’s moon of Malkin on 53 AE (Caragachi calendar) / 11,949 BBY. Descended from an insectoid species that had made a remarkable leap in size and intelligence, the Zuti-zudi also inherited from their insect ancestors their greatest curse: a cripplingly short lifespan. Now that they were sentient, the Zuti-zudi became all too aware of how brief and fleeting their lives were. Some frantically sought every experience they possibly could, throwing themselves into situations that a longer-lived species would consider suicidal. But to the Zuti-zudi, death was always right around the corner. At least they could say that their lives had been fulfilling.

As Zuti-zudi society advanced, their rapid learning and innovation skills became apparent. Over the course of only two millennia, the Zuti-zudi transformed from a species of primitive hunter-gatherers to a fully united, spacefaring civilization that had colonized all nine of Caragach’s moons. Despite their great advancements however, the Zuti-zudi could never truly shake the curse of their biology. Even the most advanced medical treatment could only extend their lives by months at most. Despondent, the Zuti-zudi came to the realization that the only way to escape their short lives would be to escape their own bodies.

Prior medical research, while failing to significantly extend the short lifespans of the Zuti-zudi, had resulted in a key discovery. Since only the skin and muscles of the Zuti-zudi were subject to rapid degradation past adulthood, a Zuti-zudi brain could outlive the body as long as it remained connected to arteries with nutrient-rich blood. It was from this research that the fundamentals of technofusion emerged.

At around the same time as technofusion entered its prototype stages, the Zuti-zudi made contact with two other spacefaring species: the Kogai and the Vasir. Both were native to Caragach, and both had significantly longer lifespans than the Zuti-zudi. Tensions over colonization of Caragach’s moons combined with jealousy over the relatively long lives of the Kogai and Vasir eventually led the Zuti-zudi to declare war on the nations of their two neighbors. Though decades ahead of their adversaries technologically, the superior numbers and toughness of the Kogai-Vasir alliance forced the Zuti-zudi into a long stalemate. Eventually, tired of a seemingly unchanging war and desiring to resume more productive endeavors such as technofusion research, Zuti-zudi leadership sued for peace.

After centuries of unsuccessful trials and countless lost generations, technofusion was at last perfected in 11,251 AE / 2,698 BBY. The research team behind the first successful prototype were immediately hailed as semi-divine heroes, and in the present day thousands of memorials large and small stand in their name across the cities of Malkin. Zuti-zudi flocked by the millions to access this new technology, but at first only a tiny portion of the species could experience a life measured in decades or even centuries rather than weeks. It would take several more iterations of technofusion before it became widely available across the species.

At first, many Zuti-zudi felt nothing but overwhelming joy and relief that their new bodies would never again wither and rot as their old flesh once did. Yet as years and then decades passed for the technofused Zuti-zudi, they began to realize that their new bodies came with significant downsides. The natural genius of the Zuti-zudi degraded with technofusion, making most little smarter than the average Human teenager while an unfortunate few were driven entirely insane. Technofusion also slowed the processing speed of the Zuti-zudi, making tasks that would have been practically thoughtless in an organic body require serious focus.

As the Zuti-zudi as a whole began to recognize the downsides of technofusion, it was decided that a select portion of their species would live out fully organic lifespans in order to preserve their high intellect, enabling them to function as effective state administrators and conduct research towards a truly perfect technofusion.

When the Gulag Plague struck Malkin, the Zuti-zudi were hit hard. Though nearly all the technofused Zuti-zudi avoided infection due to their mechanical bodies, the precious few organic Zuti-zudi left to run the higher positions of their society suffered massive casualties. Consequently, many technofused Zuti-zudi were deprived not only of leadership but the bioengineers maintaining their technofusion, and hundreds of thousands of Zuti-zudi perished simply because their machine bodies could no longer support them. Only by focusing all their efforts on reproduction at the cost of the technofused did enough organic Zuti-zudi survive the plague to keep the species alive.

In the centuries since the Gulag Plague, the Zuti-zudi have rebuilt the majority of their society. Though nearly all pre-Gulag technofused Zuti-zudi perished from a lack of maintenance during the plague, a new generation of technofused bureaucrats, paper-pushers, and simply ordinary civilians have emerged on the backs of their selfless, short-lived organic leadership. Though accepting the unity brought to Caragach and its moons by the Caragachi Enclave, the Zuti-zudi remain primarily centered on Malkin, where their political and cultural influence surpasses that of any other species.