Selagans

Template:SiteNoticeTemplate:!SpeciesThe Selagans (Homo Selagarum) are a species of carbon-based bipedal humanoids which evolved from Humans, originating from the planet of Selaga. Selagans are primarily located in the Yaztas region of Florathel, although a large subset of them have migrated elsewhere. Selagans are similar to humans in most respects, having evolved directly from them. As such, they are sometimes xenophobic and hostile, and are often discriminatory to other members of their species.

Like humans, Selagans are bipedal vertebrates with a touch endoskeleton composed of various calcium compounds. They have a skull resting atop their shoulders containing the majority of their sensory organs as well as the brain. Most Selagans have six or seven digits on each limb, although some populations have five.

As of today, the vast majority of Selagans live within the Dominion of Khela and the Theocracy of Yaztas. This is simply because these are the closest nations to their homeworld.

Major Differences from Humans

Due to evolutionary divergence over roughly 130 thousand years and a wildly different environment from the human homeworld, the Selagans have several major differences to humans.

The most visibly obvious one is the fact that their eyes appear solid black, lacking an iris or white bit. Their own visible spectrum is also shifted far into the ultraviolet, as their parent star emits a spectrum which peaks there. They are also significantly taller and stronger to withstand the crushing gravity of their home planet.

Selagans also have a slightly modified reproductive system from humans. Single births are incredibly rare, and triplets and quadruplets make up most of all pregnancies. It is also much likelier for a pregnancy to begin. Biohistorians believe that this is likely due to the evolutionary advantage to bearing large numbers of children at once and due to the small number of survivors of the Hope Fleet crash.

Due to the hostile conditions of Selaga, the Selagans have gained two capabilities which might seem wildly unrelated. Firstly, they can consume virtually any organic substance, digest it, and derive nutrients from it.

Also, as a pregnant woman requires much more nutrition than she would otherwise and the nutrient-poor environment of Selaga, the Selagans have gained the capability to simply pause a pregnancy, keeping the unborn children in stasis until conditions improve. A Selagan can also swallow huge amounts of food and water and simply store it in their belly as a reserve, using it as needed. This makes them appear to be heavily pregnant, but they are not.

The Selagan jaw has also evolved to open much wider to quickly gulp down the most common edible animal on Selaga, the Deran worm, and to this day there are games in which Selagans release a series of these worms into a field and a group of Selagans compete over who can swallow the most. Each one is almost half a meter long, and each person on average swallows eleven of them, so after these games they do not usually eat for over a month.

After all these changes, one wonders whether they adapted Selaga to be more livable to them, or whether they adapted themselves to Selaga. Historians disagree on this to this day.

There are many other changes that are simply tangential to making it easier to live in the hostile environment of Selaga. Likely due to the tiny initial population, there is very little natural genetic variation among Selagans, meaning that most of them look rather similar to each other and inbreeding and its effects can be more common. The consequences of this have mostly been neutralized as genetic manipulation has become more advanced, however.

Interestingly, over three fourths of the Selagan population is female. No one is entirely sure why. This brings some interesting consequences. In the early days of Selagan society after the Hope Fleet crash, the majority of the crew and passengers were female, and this caused a tendency for polygamy in an effort to increase the population as fast as possible. This tendency carries over to this day, although the number of wives one male can have is capped at three in the Dominion and at two in the Theocracy of Yaztas.

Population Spread

There are many places across Florathel that the Selagans have spread to. However, most of the population of the species still resides within the Yaztas Region of Florathel, particularly within the Dominion of Khela and the Theocracy of Yaztas.

Over half of the Selagan population lived within the Arnot Republic before the War of Saiheran Succession, but this population was horrifically murdered during the Scouring of Arnot precipitated by the fleets of the DoK and Trezhath.

A small fraction of this population, forewarned of the oncoming attack, fled through a wormhole to a distant region of space on the opposite side of the galaxy and founded the Darari Kelnai, a Marwanist theocracy and the farthest large Selagan population. There are small populations of Selagans scattered throughout the universe, but none of them are large enough to particularly effect universal affairs.

Nations with Significant Selagan Populations

• Dominion of Khela (43% of Selagans)
• Theocracy of Yaztas (41% of Selagans)
• Marakat Interstellar Union (4% of Selagans)
• Darari Kelnai (9% of Selagans)
• Trezhath (2% of Selagans)
• Others (1% of Selagans)