Phoenix
Engineered by the Pelted during their experimental phase earlier in the Alliance's history.
Vital Statistics (At a Glance)
Pronounced like the human word (fee nihcks). Singular is Phoenix. Possessive is Phoenixae. Plural is Phoenix.
- Species Type: Mammalian, Third Generation Pelted
- Origin: Engineered
- Frame Type: Bipedal Winged
- Average Height: tall
- Average Lifespan: longish
- Gravity Preference: light
- Homeworld: Phoenix-Nest
- Native Language: they ululate but I don't know if it's a formal language
Appearance and Physiology
Appearance
The Phoenix, designed by the Pelted, are digitigrade bipeds with bills and flexible crests and tails. Their wings sprout all along their arms; they do have hands, but the bones of the smallest finger have been extended to form the leading edge for those wings. They come in most metallic shades, mostly copper, gold, silver, and bronze. There are rare paler or darker Phoenix, as well. The sheen off those feathers is a result of a compound engineered into them to make them tougher… this has accidentally made them resistant as well to the Alliance’s most common distance weapon, the palmer. They are tall people, elongated by their low-gravity world, usually over 5’8”.
Body Language
- Crest flares when agitated, and settles when soothed/relaxed. When very relaxed, the feathers spread.
- Apparently have blind spots directly in front of their faces, leading them to cock their heads to look at things.[1]
Physiology
The Phoenix are actually mammals; the Pelted, creating them, did not want to make such extreme modifications to the reproductive cycle. Since one of their aims was to understand their own genetic problems, they retained the mammalian template so they could continue their studies and applied what they felt to be cosmetic alterations: the wings, the tail, the long-billed head. The engineers for the project found a low-gravity world and began tailoring the species so that it could fly there, and they succeeded. Everything they’d learned from examining themselves and then making the Glaseah and Ciracaana paid off handsomely. Of the three third generation races, the Phoenix are the most polished in design, and are as viable as a naturally evolved species.[2]
Variations
Peacocks supplied the template for the Phoenix's tails, but the patterning "washed out", which disappointed the engineers. They tried for a variation by adding gray peacock pheasants, and ended up with showier plumage, but an aberration that results in the primary feathers becoming decorative rather than functional. This design was scheduled for removal, but a mistake caused some number of the population to end up with it anyway, and since the genes resonsible for it are recessive, the engineers decided that the problem would solve itself in time.
Society
Member of what nations here. Information about colony worlds here.
Customs
- A gift of feathers from a Phoenix is a significant offering, especially if the feather is long enough to decorate one's aerie, rather than one's person. [3]
Stereotypes
The Phoenix remain ciphers to this day. They seem to glide through the Alliance, detached from its convulsions and emotional distresses in a way even the stolid Glaseah can’t emulate. While they participate in the greater culture, they are enigmatic; no one is sure why they choose their companions, their jobs, or their paths, and it’s hard for most people to even tell if they are friends with a Phoenix. Some have likened the Phoenix to real birds of prey, with the same wildness and the same lack of affection. But people who know the Phoenix well will tell you their loyalty when they give it is more satisfying than affection, somehow, and that a Phoenix will see hard truths more clearly, and tell them to you more often, than any other species in the Alliance. And they’d be right.
Common Family Structures
- An Eye-trained Phoenix is allowed to fly a banner at his aerie when he wins a battle, but he has to be given the banner by someone whose life was saved there. He needs five such banners before he can request a mate. [3]
Religion and Beliefs
The Eye of the Center of the Void is the Phoenixae major religion, which is almost more of a philosophy. It states that the object of every Phoenix's life is What Must Be Done, a mission granted to them by the Eye in the Center of the Void. The Eye sends them to this life (their only life) to discover this purpose and fulfill it; only this way can a Phoenix, on death, take his or her place with the Eye in The Where Beyond Chaos. Failure results in Dissolution; Phoenix believe that the remains of one's soul are used to craft the next people who will attempt that mission. Only communion with the Eye reveals one's life mission, and this communion can only be sustained via detachment, so that one can see clearly; they call this detachment Stillness. People who are awash in emotion and attachment are clouded and cannot see or be seen by the Eye. Because What Must Be Done evolves based on one's success at its pursuit, a Phoenix practices detachment as a matter of course. Most people credit the famed Phoenixae serenity to this practice.
The Phoenix embrace the concept of honor, in the sense of integrity and close hewing to one's purpose. "Honor is the best form of craziness," as Bryer said once.[4] Their other primary practice is focus; to continually bring the mind back to their purpose is a matter of discipline.
The Phoenix also have temples, where a square token can purchase an offering.[5]
Eye-Training
"As I understand it, most of the Phoenix you meet offworld are Eye-worshippers, but few of them get far enough along in their meditative practices to get to the physical training. I hear it’s rigorous... takes a really well-placed palmer shot to the head to put them down, or significant injury."[6] Eye training comes with a martial uniform in red, usually tanned hide pants, a vest that laces at the side to accommodate the wings, and red feathers woven into crest and tail.[7]
Repeated at Phoenix Religion, but I'd prefer that page link to each major species' religion section on the species page, rather than the other way around.
Personality/Philosophy
The closest thing to personality tests or zodiacs the Phoenix have is a diagram of two perpendicular gradients. The horizontal gradient's end points are the Human Sun and the Hawk Moon, and represent the gradient between the thinking and feeling and self-aware being, who is also able to err and self-deceive; and the animal, savage, but eternally present being. The former is capable of understanding purpose/What Must Be Done - the latter is capable of Stillness. Every Phoenix has a personality that is somewhere on this gradient, either more given toward humanity or more given toward animal stillness. The vertical axis is a gradient between the Eye and the earth, and represents the storms that cloud the sight. The higher up this axis a Phoenix is more prone to being, the less "weather" is distracting them from their sight of the Eye.
Architecture
The Phoenix build aeries on platforms, raised on stilts. "They had not set down on the planet's surface, but on one of the city's many platforms, and all around her were dozens more. Each was supported by a single pole, whether that pole was surmounted by a single dwelling barely the size of a shuttle or a multi-building platform with several 'stacks.'" They "looked like birdhouses, painted in ivory and gold and tan with hip-and-gable roofs in brick red or rich brown. Banners flew from their upturned eaves, and each floor had a landing balcony, leading through large round doors to the buildings' interiors. There were fountains and potted trees and small rock gardens [...] and absolutely no railings anywhere." The architecture has "unexpected curves," and prefers ramps to stairs.[8]
The Phoenix prefer to sleep in beds styled after adherent nests.[9]
Naming Conventions
History
Once again, however, the seeding of the race failed, and the Pelted couldn’t understand why. Unlike the Glaseah, whose esper abilities made the revelation of their creation inevitable, and the Ciracaana, who blundered into the truth, the Phoenix experiment was carried through without mistakes. It should have worked. They should never have known.
Except that from day one, the Phoenix have been more alien than some of the aliens the Pelted have met. They rejected everything implanted in them and spontaneously evolved a completely original culture and belief system. They rejected attachment—not emotion, but attachment—and developed a religion and culture around the concept of the Eye in the Center of the Void. One must remain clear, like water, so that one’s purpose can be divined. And then one must serve that purpose. In these things, the Phoenix are implacable…and tranquil. They are like arrows loosed at a target: there is only flight. One is in motion, one with the target, one is the target, one is the completion of the flight.
If the failures of the first two engineering projects dismayed the Pelted, the failure of this one flabbergasted them. They knew they’d created the Phoenix, but the Phoenix didn’t recognize that creation. The Alliance found itself in the bizarre position of sending delegations to the species they’d created to believe itself natural… to explain that they weren’t.
The Phoenix didn’t care. As far as they were concerned, focusing on how they were created was irrelevant to who they were. They served the Eye. The Pelted were welcome to continue discussions with them, so long as they understood the Phoenix had other priorities. So, helplessly, the Pelted did, and welcomed into the Alliance a species they honestly didn’t know at all.
Induction into the Alliance
The Phoenix's induction (re-introduction?) to the Alliance was negotiated by a Seersa male as lead ambassador. "Way back in the very beginning, when the first ambassador showed up to maek contact with the Phoenix, he used a web of lines to get around. Because obviously there were no Pads on the planet at the time."
This ceremony is reprised every twenty-five years, and involves "sitting in silence," "having a small meal" and "looking at old documents."[8]
Phoenix Characters
Bit Characters
- The Phoenix in "Case Study: Nest"
- The manager at the admissions office in Mindtouch