Kalar

Template:!Species InfoboxThe Kalar are a species of intelligent dragonlike reptiles, hailing from Carlea in the Cnara System. They are primarily located in Florathel, with only a miniscule percentage spread through the rest of Cosmoria. Kalar are known for their cooperative and peaceful attitude, but are powerful fighters when necessary, with Cnara-Frealee's armies singlehandedly turning the tide of the War of the Last Alliance.

Brief History

The Kalar came into existence as a genetically engineered subspecies of the Varla of Veladris, who themselves originated as subspecies of the Isra of ages past. One of the most lush of the true Varla colonies of Ectabana, Carlea's environment incentivized flight and allowed a large body size, making the Kalar the physically largest of the Isra Tree. Carlea's perfectly terraformed conditions led to a comfortable lifestyle and prodigious population boom, the heights of which the species has still not returned to.

During the Alshunaman Rebellion, the nascent Kalar cut ties with Veladris' oppressive regime, siding with the armies of Alshaza. This led to the species experiencing unparalleled prosperity and peace under the Alshunaman Empire. During this time, many offworld colonies were established, including those at Selfar, Noleas, Myra, Azelis, and others.

Alas, this prosperity was brought to an abrupt end with the coming of Karith the Accursed. His armies brutally conquered the Alshunaman Empire. The Carlean people were described as fighting fiercely and stubbornly, and stood for years as the last Florathelian holdout against his Empire. When Carlea fell, his armies subjected the planet to an orbital bombardment, destroying much of the surface and nearly wiping out the species.

After Karith was killed and his empire disintegrated, the mostly depopulated Carlea was trapped on the borderlands between the newly formed Jamulsa and Kromva, the two most powerful states in Florathel. and Carlean colonies from other systems fled the poorly managed, unconvincing imitation of the Alshunaman Empire that was Jamulsa and the martial culture and oppressive rule of Kromva. By the time of the Years of Fire, the Kalar led a peaceful, self-sufficient nation ducking the random attacks surrounding states had a habit of aiming at each other in this time.

The Providence Union subjugated the Kalar, making them into a second-class species. Labor camps were established in the Cnara System solely for use as punishment. As the Providence Union's existence drew on, the oppressive rule of the dynasties at Revarea and Nerax grew ever more intolerable.

By the end of the Providence Union's time in Cosmoria, the Kalar had begun several small-scale rebellions. As the other outlying states began to separate from the central government at Kaslar, the Carlean rebellions rapidly formed a united front across the Cnara and Frealee Systems. The remote colony at Kavira formed a bridgehead for the final assault on Kaslar itself and the end of the war, leading to the final independence of the many nations of the former Providence Union.

The Kalar attempted several times to mediate peace talks during the War of Saiheran Succession, failing several times until the monumental signing of the Fifth Treaty of Providence in 95,629 CE. Having stayed out of the war, the Kalar and their sister species the Analar came out of that bloody time in history with the largest populations of all the species of Florathel.

Appearance

The Kalar are blue-gray winged reptilian creatures around fifteen meters long. Their long necks are lined with structures that look vaguely like gills, serving as air intakes. A Kala's underbelly is covered by lighter, less stiff scales, and late in a pregnancy or after consuming a massive amount of food, these scales become slightly translucent after stretching over the distended abdomen. The long semi-prehensile tail of a Kala has a set of long, thin spikes which can be shot like arrows in the case of danger, but this capability is useless as of the modern day.

Biology

Respiratory System

Kalar have a relatively simple respiratory system evolved from their marine ancestors. Air travels in through gill-like structures to the lungs, where oxygen is extracted and carbon dioxide is put back in, then deoxygenated air is blown back out. A Kala's lungs, being required to take in enough oxygen to sustain a creature of this size, are quite large and span the length of the neck.

A major benefit of this system is that it never interfaces with the digestive system. This eliminates the risk of choking, though it does cause a few limitations in speech, as the openings cannot be used as efficiently to articulate sounds.

Digestive System

Because of their huge size, Kalar need to eat a lot. To help facilitate this, Kalar evolved to have this odd-looking extendable jaw that can extend up to several meters from the individual in seconds, grab something out of the sky, and swallow it. This jaw can "unhinge", allowing a Carlean to ingest objects up to the size of itself. The esophagus is also rather stretchy, allowing for rapid conveyance of very large food items to the stomach.

The stomach is a relatively simple affair, made up of a really stretchy bag that produces extremely powerful acid to digest food. Interestingly, it has an incredibly high capacity, with the potential to contain and digest another Carlean. This gives you an idea of how much food they can hold at once, so they can eat less often.

After the stomach's contents are fully digested, they are passed through a really long wrapped up tube, the intestine. This absorbs all the nutrients and water in the liquified soup before it's voided.

Kalar have an interesting capability to consciously switch off the production of stomach acids. This serves two purposes, both of which are mostly obsolete in the modern technological society. The first purpose is to allow a Kala to swallow huge amounts of food and regurgitate it for their young. The second involves protection. If a Kala is under threat and near her young (or anyone's young, really), they can simply gulp them down and turn off digestion, protecting them in their belly until the threat passes.

Nervous System

Being intelligent species, Kalar have rather large brains. Due to the large size of their bodies, Kalar have evolved to have incredibly fast nerve impulses to be able to reach the other end of the body in a reasonable timeframe.

Senses

Kalar have six main sensory inputs: vision, scent, taste, hearing, touch, and a thing called "proprioception". The first five work about how one would expect, the only difference being that the Kalar visual spectrum is significantly wider than, say, Humans. Proprioception, the sense of things happening within the body, is much sharper than in most life-forms. For example, a pregnant Carlean could acutely feel everything their unborn children are doing in the womb. No one's entirely sure why this sense evolved to be so sharp, although parasites which were prevalent before cohesive societies on Carlea could explain this.

Reproductive System

They reproduce ovoviviparously, which means that the eggs are inside the mother's womb up until a few days after hatching. This means that the eggs do not require hard shells. Kalar almost invariably give birth to sextuplets (roughly 97% of the time) with the next most common numbers being 4 and then 2, with any other number occurring extremely rarely. The Carlean gestation period is approximately 1.5 standard years long, though there is some variation either way with the longest and shortest on record a truly insane four years, and two months respectively.

Demographics

Kalar are almost solely found in Florathel, especially within Cnara-Frealee and neighboring states. One of the only known Kalar habitations outside of the region is the city of Karlastadt on the disk of Eos.

Culture

Kalar culture has been influenced throughout the millennia by their pacifistic nature and other important properties.

Religion

There are many minor religions scattered through space inhabited by the Kalar. However, most Kalar today and throughout their history are primarily atheist, as only 14% of the Kalar population follows any religion.

Language

The Kalar once had an incredibly diverse set of languages, but as the planet unified, many died out. Today, a single language is spoken by the vast majority of the species, with loanwords from hundreds of extinct ones. This language places heavy emphasis on the pitch of syllables, with a subtly incorrect pitch potentially drastically changing the meaning of the word. Due to the unique Kalar respiratory system, a translating computer is required for other species to speak to Kalar, and fortunately these devices are commonplace.

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Dance, O Freest Aeon

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