Platies
The Platies are one of the True Alien species in the Alliance.
They are fully aquatic, and the only reliable communication with them is through the Naysha.
History
The Pelted, discovering an almost entirely aquatic world, had sent a team to explore and thought it sensible to bring some Naysha scientists to join them. The water of this world intrigued them: dense and thick with alien chemicals—“like a womb,” one of them famously likened it—and through this soup flew enormous creatures that resembled flatworms the size of shuttlecraft.
And these creatures, the Naysha instantly knew to be sentient, and could communicate with them no land creature could duplicate. Not by talking, but just by a mutual water-sharing knowing.
Unsurprisingly, the Pelted questioned this, until the Naysha led them to miniature versions of the flatworms and insisted they were the same species. Consequent examination proved this out, and the Pelted allowed that the Naysha could apparently communicate with these aliens, and asked them to do so.
That particular mission was an adventure. By the end of it, the Pelted wanted the Platies (named because of their resemblance to members of the Platyhelminthes, the “flatworm” phylum) in the Alliance badly. Because it appeared that the Platies had senses even more extraordinary than the Naysha’s: they appeared to extend into timespace, and could in fact fold it to travel. Since the Platies seemed amenable to the friendship, the Alliance inducted them into its membership at the suggestion of the Naysha, who said that the Platies would welcome the protection of membership status, and prefer it to the responsibilities of being an allied species instead.[1]
Appearance
Platies appear similar to Terran flatworms, and are velvety[2], frictionless and dense in texture. They come in every color, from muddy greens, browns, and blues to fluorescent shades, with all sorts of patterns. They look like flatworms, but unlike flatworms have no visible eyes or mouths, and seem to ingest and sense their environments entirely through their frictionless skins. Small Platies are very thin; larger ones can be as thick as 3-4 inches in the center, tapering out at the edges.[1]
Biology
Small Platies are female, and tend to stay within small territorities to shepherd their young; large ones are male, and travel, protecting the territory from predators. The larger Platies somehow 'choose' which of the smaller ones will grow into males.[3] Though females, and males under the influence of a more mature male, are restricted in their growth, mature males never stop growing until their deaths. Platies live on microscopic organisms, or at least the small ones do; the mechanism by which a creature as large as a mature male Platy could sustain itself on microscopic organisms remains unknown, or perhaps they have another unknown food source.[1]
When a mature male and a catalyzed immature male share the same space, the mature male can control the immature male's size. In addition, females and immature males can recognize a mature male's domain instinctively. In the wild, two Platy males of similar size and power would fight for territory, but they generally do not desire to do so and attempt to avoid it.[4]
Communication and Perception
Platies can communicate with one another over very long distances when in the dense water of their homeworld (or an equivalent), and the Naysha have a similar ability to communicate with them. This communication seems to be the fundamental basis of their civilization.[2] They have spatial senses and abilities to move through space unlike those of humans and Pelted, and difficult for those species to understand; they may also have the ability to perceive and even move through time.[2][3]
Platies can feel, to some degree, the intentions and emotions of one another and of other species through their dense, soup-like native water environment.[5] To some degree, they can feel the truth through the water, or at least are made uncomfortable by lies expressed in their water; they like "clean water," a term which is meant as much or more in reference to emotion as to physical cleanness.[6] Their sensitivity to, and ability to modify, spacetime is poorly-understood but highly valuable on ships.[1]
Miscellaneous
- When drylanders interact often enough with aquatics, Naysha may give them names that are easier to sign than fingerspelling their name. This sometimes reflects a personal quality of the individual; in that capacity, the Platies help the Naysha choose the name.[5][6]
- The Platy homeworld, and Platy environments on ships, have water that is very thick and soupy.[5]
Images
Gallery Notice: Image "File:alysha-sar-and-platies.jpeg|Sar and Alysha signing, with Platies in the background
File:at-rest-with-platies.jpeg|Alysha at rest with Platies File:Illo-Naysha.jpg|Naysha swimming with Platies Naysha-and-platy-full-body.jpg|Full-body image of a Naysha and a Platy Naysha-and-platy-profile.jpg|Profile image of a Naysha and a Platy" not found or API unavailable.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Pelted Guidebook
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "In the Line of Duty"
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Who is Willing, chapter 4
- ↑ Who is Willing, chapter 6
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Who is Willing, chapter 1
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Who is Willing, chapter 8