OUR NEIGHBORS AMONG THE STARS PART I: THE RAKSHASA
(A handsome South Asian woman in buisness casual attire [khakis and a buttoned shirt] stands with a comfortable and gentle expression on a grassy plain in a sunny day. In the background, large geometric shapes carved from smooth, colorful stone rise out of the frame.)
Blessings and salutations to you, fellow traveller. I am Doctor SK Bhurano, and it is my pleasure to invite you onto a journey of understanding, as we delve together into the enlightening science and rich cultural legacy of the first known non-terrestrial species to be transplanted to spaceship earth. I speek of course, of the Rakshasa...
(A cube of green and white striated jade rests on an unadorned pedestal. Four Rakshasa [one mostly blue, one yellow and two black] each place an appendage on the cube. An interior glow begins in each of their hands and then spreads into the cube, before fading away completely. Then the cube's form ripples and shifts, becoming momentarily liquid before reshaping into a perfect sphere. After a quick cut, the sphere is once again on the pedestal. In another strangely liquid way, the sphere flows outwards and expands greatly in size, as its shape bends and contorts wildly into a shape not unlike Agate's own. After the next cut, a montage of short scenes follows. In each, a group of Rakshasa are shown engaged in some sort of obviously educational situation: recieving a lecture, opporating some inscrutable Rakshasan device, reading, etc.)
Rakshasa are inorganic beings, being composed entirely of the same Quantum-sensative stone that forms the basis for all of their technology. Rakshasa begin as cubes of this substance which are taken by a group of 2-7 adult Rakshasa and gifted with random packets of the unique Quantum pattern that makes them them. After "fertilization", the cube changes shape into a sphere, which is then cared for by its parents for roughly 52 earth days. During this time the infant requires a constant diet of purified Quantum, which it stores in preparation for its next metamorphosis.
At the completion of this cycle, the natal Rakshasa again changes form, this time to the familiar humanoid adult shape. The newly aware being posesses some basic language skills and other information imparted by its parents, but lacks the training and experience to fully participate in Rakshasan society. To better prepare them for adult life, young Rakshasa from their parent groups following second metamorphosis. Before being accepted into society as full members, young Rakshasa spend approximately 8.3 earth-years in creche-schools, undergoing intensive instruction and drilling in those fields to which they are naturally pre-disposed. For more academically demanding careers, additional learning periods may be added on.
(A procession of strange letters scrolls across the screen. Their lines and angles are extremely precise, suggesting that they were written either by a machine or with the aid of several tools. Over all, the dominant visual theme is that of component parts of circles and squares. They file in collumns onto the screen which, once full, begins to scroll down, with no end in sight for the strange parade of symbols.)
The written form of the Rakshasan alphabet contains well over one thousand letters. These may be combined to produce every syllabul in known human language, as well as several others outside the normal limits of the human vocal range. In addition to the "consonant/vowel" distinction familiar to speakers of the Indo-European language families, Rakshasan also incorporates tone and pitch. For most native speakers, a vocabulary limited to only 2-4 letter words is more than sufficient for day-to-day life, though in the more esoteric fields, important terms can stretch on to 25 letters or more.
(A montage of 3D renderings of life on the Rakshasan capital world and its colonies. The over-all feel is something akin to the city-states of Bronze Age antiquity combined with a massive alien star empire.)
The Rakshasan Order once stretched over nearly one hundred of the Milky Way's star systems. At its height, the interstellar society was a shining example of organization and creative drive. Tragically, it was brought low when the the capital world was destroyed in an unprovoked attack by another star-faring species. Without the logistical and governmental provided by the capital, the colonies fell into diarray. It is impossible to measure the full scope of the Rakshasa diaspora, but the reports from those refugees who have reached the Earth are a sorrowful narrative.
(A montage of smooth stone edifaces growing up out of the Siberian tundra.)
INSHU led negotiations between the government of the Russian Confederation and representatives of the Rakshasa species. Eventually, an agreement was reached by which a section of northernmost Siberia would be committed to the Rakshasa as their new home. The technology of the Rakshasa, indeed, their very lives, depend upon Quantum energy, collected from the natural flow of Teluric energy through the universe by great industrial edifaces. These buildings actually Z-waves and then break them down into their component parts (Quantum, Psi and Serendipity). Because the Rakshasa only require the Quantum, the Psi and Serendipity are shed as a sort of waste-product. This has the unintended benefit of making the area ajacent to one of the Quantum-syphons supernaturally fertile - life, in all of its forms, thrives and breeds at an impossible rate. It was this realization that sealed the deal with the Russian Confederation: accepting the Rakshasa as guests meant generating a vast swath of super-enriched farming land that the Rakshasa themselves had no particular interest in. Human Talents with skills in engineering were brought in to design automated farms so that the Rakshasa lands would be free of human farmers, but the high utility of their land could still be put to beneficial use.
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