Uzati

The Uzati are a species of hollow boned, low gravity life from a world that has been rendered barely habitable in the Perseus Sector.

Physiology
The Uzati are a semi-bipedial race, their overall body design is somewhat like an velociraptor with long arms, and a long tail as well with somewhat more of a slant and no feathers. Uzati usually are five to six feet tall, and seven to eight feet long from mandibles to tail. Their main body is very thin, only being a foot and a half thick at most. They don’t weigh that much, usually being only seventy pound on average and their bones are hollow, but like birds have thin connected bits in the hollow part to not make them completly weak structurally. This is thanks to the uzati coming from a low gravity world. The brain of the uzati is located in between their arms. Due to these traits, it seems that the uzati’s ancestors were likely something that filled a very similar niche to a bird; supported by the amount of hollow boned and even flying creatures on their planet.

Uzati have two arms and two legs, as well as two eyes although their eyes aren’t placed on the “head” of the uzati, instead they are placed halfway up their neck on the sides of it in spherical extensions on both sides of their neck. The Uzati don’t have eyebrows, instead they blink in multiple directions to convey emotions and modify their eyes to signify different emotions. These eyes are large, being six inches in diameter and have muscles in their eye capsules that allow them to make multiple expressions with their eyes. These large eyes mark the end of the body and the start of the long neck uzati have. For ears Uzati have gill-like slits of their neck that pick up noise, with a dent in their neck to pick up more sound better.

Uzati have great reflexes, and will quickly evade or change what is doing surprisingly fast. This is thanks to their fast brain updating and higher vibrational sensitivity along with surprsingly good short term memory. However, their long term memory tends to suck and they rely on writing, transcripts and other forms of data preserving to keep themselves from forgetting things. Uzati also regress to survival insticts faster than most other species.

The coloration of a uzati is usually a yellowish or orange color, with many long and thin scales lining the uzati's body. The eyes of the uzati are usually a purplish or grey color. The uzati coloration sometimes can white or pale, and the back of the uzati is always tanner by default. The scales of the uzati can absorb light, which replaces their need to breathe by relying more on light. However, it is less sun absorbtion and more heat absorbing and generally will have long back warmers when it is colder. This same light absorbing seems to happen with the eyes to the point where prolonged contact with a bright source will actually get the Uzati high.

The neck of the Uzati can range anywhere from two to three feet in length and their tail is usually an extra six or so inches longer than their neck to balance their body out. Instead of a head the uzati have a mouth that has finger-ish jointed mandible that are sharp and fold in and out of the mouth of the uzati. It is through this method the Uzati speak, by maniplating these manibles to make noises along with their vocal pitching. Normally these mandibles are in the mouth and covered by flaps in order to keep bacteria out. These concealable mandibles are used to drive into the flesh of prey and take large chunks of meat out of them, and in their upper neck they have their actual mouth with teeth in it, these teeth are used to grind up the meat more to make it easier to digest.

The uzati’s arms are long and somewhat thin, but their hands have sharp fingers with two thumbs, having a pointer, middle, index but no pinky. Their thumbs are easily opposable, and are used to grab, build, and make stuff, although it does not has as much strength to it even if the grip is stronger due to the conic nature of the tips of their fingers. These fingers have feelings on them that work like extra toungues, except picking up gases or fluids instead of solids in detection. Basically hand noses as one way to think of them.

The uzati’s legs are where most of the strength of the uzati seems to have gone, for they have relatively strong, powerful hind legs that allow them to run fast and make very agile maneuvers. The uzati can easily reach speeds of over thirty miles per hour when sprinting, and can sprint for surprisingly long times due to only using two legs for energy. The tail keeps the uzati stable while running, or moving around their long neck when looking around. The feet consist of three long toes forwards with two thick toes diagonolly backwards to keep traction with the ground.

Reproduction-wise, uzati are like birds in that they have egg laying, however the female Uzati have a “egg pouch” on their stomachs like a marsupial, these pouches hold the egg to them and allow them to incubate while being able to keep a mobile life style. Male uzati don’t have this pouch however. The differences between a male and female uzati are minimal, beyond the egg pouch and sexual dimorphism is almost non-existent beyond females being more protective and males being more aggressive.

Uzati, while fast aren't strong or that durable due to being on a lower gravity planet having hollow bones and not much body strength. Generally, a uzati can't heavy lift objects that well even when well-conditioned and for this reason try to avoid using heavier weapons as much as possible unless mounted on a vehicle.

Pre-Canon
The earliest point of history, to the beginning of the universe is Pre-Canon for the uzati. The reason Uzati call their history in various ages of Canon is due to their uncertainty of the historical accuracy of it all due to limited sources of information due to the religious nuclear crusades, despite the consistency of most of the historical accounts they did find.

The universe rapidly expanded in the first seconds, and from there in the billions of years that followed the galaxy was made along with billions upon billions of worlds as time went by. One of which of these worlds was known as Tommik, a little planet with low gravity and somewhat violent geological gravity thanks to the two-mile thin crust of the planet. Due to the thin nature of the crust large basins of mantle can be found deep under water that signify asteroid attack. This world is a very young world, only a billion years old with life being around for seven hundred million years old. Life went from bacterial microbes to multi-cellular in just a hundred million years.

As time went on, multi-cellular life became more common around three-four hundred million years ago and the waters became filled with life, some developing brains. Two hundred million years ago life took over the lands as well, and flying life dominated the skies for a hundred million years before a mass extinction happened giving time for a rise to the class of life that would become the uzati formed. Despite that, large flying wildlife was still common even if the very big and powerful specimens were all dead. Proto-uzati often had to devise clever ways to outwit the slow, but deadly Zigtites and the fast and unpredictable Mivats while hunting down their own prey, the easy to scare and seemingly paranoid Tuvkris. As a result, they grew higher intelligence. What also would spurn higher intelligence is the age of winds.

The age of winds was a long hundred thousand year period where violent windstorms, hurricanes and tornados tormented the skies and made light harder to get. It was here the current day uzati invented fire as a light to keep warm inside caves. The other uses for fire were figured out quickly soon afterwards. It would not be for another ten thousand years until coal and copper were discovered and the first true civilizations on written record would form. Boats were seemingly invented very early on, and due to this Uzati spread went almost everywhere on the planet save for the parts of the planet too cold for them to dare thread.

Ancient Canon
The true start of uzati civilization, or “Early Canon” is arguably with the civilization of Yuvazig, which was around five thousand human years ago. It is the earliest recorded uzati empire managing to survive to current uzati culture from even the nuclear crusades. The empire was in many ways, was just a big collective of many uzati packs stationed around a big lake held together by a very limited democratic republic; each pack’s leader was a representative for the overall government at the time. The greatest pack leader, determined in a non-lethal tournament was the emperor of this government.

This empire dominated the continent it was on, and at the time religion prospered. Their religion was a polytheistic religion using the gods made up from various packs and putting them together into a few super gods who were like uzati with many necks and heads. These gods made up a lot of the mythology the uzati had, along with the horrible super beasts their gods in the sky slay. This pack was seen as the true grand pack, and celestial events were usually seen as the actions of this pack. Astrology at the time studied the actions of this pack, noticed that they took repetitive actions and followed patterns.

Yuvazig was a constantly expanding and prideful empire constantly taking over other packs of Uzati and assimilating them into their empire. This was the empire that in much effect laid the framework for the mentalities and beliefs that would dominate the Early Uzatian canon. Overtime another empire of similar glory to Yuvazig was encountered, one that was known as the Goffikak empire which existed on a seperate contenient seperated by a hundred miles of sea. This empire developed from a two mile wide river instead of a lake, and relied heavily on this massive river for transportation and development of their empire. It is a constant debate as to whether or not this is really a river between schoolars. This empire believed that deities were the stars, literally. As in, the stars were living beings watching over everyone. This empire and the Yuvazig Empire came into intense conflict four thousand and three hundred years ago; it was the first Great War.

As time went on, the Yuvazig Empire started to crumble as pride in certain sets of packs grew and wanted to be independent from the main pack. This was the age of asunder, which started four thousand years ago. This recurring issue wasn’t paid attention much at first, but as time went on they started to harshly crack down and even try to invade the other countries that they once let be independent. They eventually gave up on their attempt to take over the Giffikak empire, but by then it was too late; the other empires formed from the multiple revolutions covered the land and they weren’t possible to take over. The Yuvazig superpower was no longer a super power, and the Giffikak empire overseas, the citizens having heard the news of the nationalistic spread inspired a similar fervor in once Giffikak controlled areas, but unlike the Yuvazig empire the Giffikak empire fell into complete ruin, not even just being a severely weakened power.

From there, aside from the occassionally feuding packs/clans nothing really much happened in terms of progress for a several hundred years, just farming and hunting with the occasional pack shrine meet filling the minds of the uzati throughout the world. It was a simple time, since there was nothing really too much to do overall; the emperors of the empires at the time didn't have any need for resources beyond what they had and greed didn't affect them much due to not having any real reason to spread or take over other empires. There wasn't much desire for revolution in the general populace since most of them couldn't read or write or anything that could lead to a revolution. Populations didn't rise due to disease and disease didn't spread due to the general isolated nature of the uzati communities and the worst outbreaks didn't spread far.

It stayed like this for around four hundred or so years with relatively little happening due to how spread out uzati was. Farming the land and hunting animals when breeding them and eating their babies wasn’t optimal were the common ways of living at the time. Sometimes when bored they would start lighting small fires and dancing around them, the fire stimulating their sensitive eyes. Similarly, blindness was a major issue among the Uzati at the time due to their constant staring at the star their planet orbited.

The issues caused by the star staring slowly became worse, as it lowered productivity and many Uzati ended up starving to death due to a good share of the packs becoming more increasingly dysfunctional. A several packs from the continent where Gafikak once was saw these problems and desired to cure the issue. They decided to make a tall tale, one that would be considered real by the other Uzati. Using the power of written language and group thinking, the Uzati made a religious text detailing why the old empires fell along with stories related to the rules they would make.

This book known, as the Irkitå would influence the minds of many Uzati, convincing them to not stare into the sun so much by claiming to stare into the star was to star into the face of their gods. This was seen, as a sin for staring into the face of the god pack would show a lack of respect for the pack. The same was applied to staring at burning fires or anything bright and hot; it was not allowed due to the wrath it would provoke. The Irkitå however was increasingly unpopular, and most Uzati ignored what the books had to say believing that the god pack would not be so wrathful. Not to mention, no way they would stop staring into the sun or into a campfire; such a thing was seen as unthinkable.

As a result, the few packs that believed in the Irkitå took militant action, uniting them selves and crusading against peaceful villagers and by the will of the god pack conquered pack after pack, assimilating them into the super pack that was being created. These crusades went on for a couple hundred years, and their metallurgy gave them a great advantage over most other empires. The empires at the time were not prepared for these surprise assaults, and due to being unprepared were rather quickly cut down by the believers of the Irkitå. Overtime a great empire formed, taking over a large portion of the Gafikak continent. It was called the Irkitåkak Empire, named effectively after the same book that incited the crusades.

The Irkitåkak Empire tired to take over the other regions, but failed due to the rise of multiple smaller super packs that managed to fend off the Irkitåkak Empire; much to the chagrin of the Irkitåkak Empire. ? The other super packs adapted a different religion from the Irkitåkak Empire, but they had a several variations of it. Eventually they in order to keep the Irkåtak Empire from taking them over allied in an agreement to defend each other should the Irkitåkak Empire threaten them. Information behind this religion separate from the Irkitåkak Empire is due to the nuclear Dark Age unknown and not worth explaining.

This for an odd reason created a state of stability, as no power could overpower the other. In a rare instance of the Uzati history, the two powers agreed to a cease in conflict and were seperated by the two hundred mile wide sea. This divide between the two super powers would stay for another hundred years. During that time there was a lot of internal corruption from both sides; lots of rule breaking and smuggling from the citizens and the high class basking in all sorts of riches.

Reformations happened from the corruption although all it did was justify it by changing their religion to allow things previously not through bribery. Ornate riches and fireworks are common and materialism becomes more common as well, the materialism is also seen in the lower social classes as well. This angers the religious minister on one side and the minister on the other side is a part of this materialistic revolution as well. As a result, the minister that rejects materialism finds herself in the minority and eventually commits suicide due to the isolation from both her husband and wife divorcing her (marriage back than allowed one to have both a single husband and single wife).

Empires/Factions

 * Urzine