Vax
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Name: Va'xitchaa Llaza Tenochitlai
Also Answers To: Va'x, Princess, Crown Princess
Age: 9 years, Galactic Standard
Height:12'7
Weight: No measurement taken.
Gender: Female(?)
Eyes: Grey, with black iris/pupils, flecked with purple.
Hair: None. Chitinous armor instead, the plates adorning her head a gleaming green-gray
Distinguishing Features: Four arms, extreme height, grace of movement and strength.
Likes: Meeting others (particularly new species), eating others, making friends, learning about 'socializing'.
Dislikes: -None-?...
Planet of Origin: Tenochitlai
Hometown: Queenshive (nearest translation)
Species: Tenochitii Crown Princess (prototype Llaza-caste)
Allegiance: None
Va'x, the first and last Crown Princess of Va'xitchaa, a rogue Tenochitii, as rare as that is...
Long after the god-queen Va'x had established herself as mother and ruler of the Tenochitii across the whole of their home world, increasing their productiveness, specializations, and pushing them toward researches and genetic advancements that propelled them to space travel a few short centuries later, she decided experimentation and possible improvement of the Llaza (Princess) caste might be warranted as well. So, with the limited experience that the Va'xitchaa Empire had gathered interacting with other sentient species, as well as the improvements in physiology and genetics that she herself had forced along, she created her daughter-clone. The Crown-Princess Va'x, first of her kind, and, unfortunately, doomed to be the last.
For all the improvements that the Queen made in her first among daughters, there was one experimental factor, one thing they'd observed in other successful races, that their own lacked entirely. A free, unrestricted individual, capable of taking any task that others in the hierarchy were able to. Va'x, the princess, was created to correct this. Her genetics made her a success, as far as the experiment went. She was capable of questioning and wanting beyond her station. But, the usefulness to such a carefully stratified culture was limited, and in the end, the Crown-Princess was deemed dangerous, and set to be destroyed.
But, instead of accepting her 'decommissioning and appropriation', Va'x decided she wanted to live, and that her free will would not be extinguished just to make her mother happy. In an act of treason and teenage rebellion, the Crown Princess took a Stinger, one of the smallest, and swiftest vessels in the Tenochitii armada, and fled, eluding capture and, when capture became too difficult, out-and-out destruction, and managing to flee Hivespace, the region controlled by the God-queen and her loyal subjects.
So, the Crown Princess, alone and hunted by her own kind, found herself wandering the unknown reaches of space in her small, if swift, ship. Curiosity and loneliness would prove to be great motivators in finding a world to meet others, for she'd heard from her mother of races that were soft, weak, and ruled themselves, much as Va'x now ruled herself.
-Appearance and Biology: The most obvious aspects of her appearance are easy enough to discern. Va'x presents a look that seems to show her as an armored soldier, though, in fact, her body's armor has nothing to do with her combat readiness, and everything to do with her heritage. Her kind are evolved from hive insects, and unlike mammals and other vertebrates, continue to rely on their exoskeleton for support and protection from the world.
She's rather taller than the average human, literally towering over them by nearly a fully grown man's height again, though her slender legs and slim body seem to make her appear light and delicate, though, in truth, she's solid and resilient as can be, and quite heavy, in the exchange.
Her elongated skull, it's length streamlined and covered with the telltale gleam of the hard, resilient chitin that coats most of her form, is home to an expanded neural hub, a dense interconnected structure similar in many respects to the brain of mammals, although in truth, most of her 'thinking' is actually distributed throughout her body, as her nervous system is far less exposed than those without a carapace's protection.
One of the number of things this allows her to do is to store vast amounts of genetic data within herself, for use should she ever decide to breed or propagate her kind, as well as allowing her to freely operate her four arms, tail, and legs with a coordinated grace and dexterity that should, by all rights, be impossible. While she may not be evidently more brilliant, clever, or quick-witted, her mental capacity, and it's ability to grow and learn, is potentially limitless.
A front-view of Va'x and her features, with her defensive plates retracted, revealing her delicate, unarmored features.
Her own genetic design, based on the few examples of 'homo sapien' DNA her mother had managed to collect in the few encounters with them, resulted in her expressively free will, and the human-like face that lies beneath the retractable carapace that covers her face. Soft and delicate, it's one of her most vulnerable areas when exposed, but facilitates advances that were considered essential. Her kind lack the mobility of mouth and tongue to reproduce common human speech, but thanks to her own makeup, she's quite easily able to reproduce any number of 'typical' tongues, and, indeed, can still speak in her own language, though this mostly consists of body language and pheromones.
Her own sense of smell relies not on a nose, which she doesn't possess, instead having only a vestigial ridge, but on tiny spiricales, scattered across her body, tiny openings in her hide that allow her to sample scents more sensitively and accurately.
Each of her arms are jointed at the shoulder and elbow, a thick, flexible skin, mostly hidden in the overlapping joints of her carapace, although certain poses, motions, and sets of her limbs reveal these more vulnerable sections. Her waist, hips, knees, and ankles are all articulated in much the same manner, and her neck is the most obvious point of all for this differentiation. The skin isn't shiny, and is rather easily told from her more patently armored sections.
Va'x with her armored defensive plates 'closed'. Typically how she looks, unless among friends or eating/drinking. Middle protective portion retracts vertically, and the side-plates fold out.
Her tail, in a fashion similar to the other joints on her body, is a series of chitinous rings, each linked with a flexible bit of tough skin, which allows near-full range of motion with the seventh limb, and gives her a deceptive reach with the wickedly sharp chitin blade that tips it.
Both her hands and feet are marvels of genetic engineering, her hands sporting a very human-like four fingers and opposable thumb. The skin on her hands, like to that of her unarmored face, is delicate, although the back of her hand sports a chitin plate, her knuckles are hardened and clearly made to deal damage when her hands are closed in a fist, and the tips of each of her fingers ends in a wickedly sharp chitinous claw. She's capable of being gentle, delicate, and dexterous, and, thanks to her fine manipulation skills, is a passable pilot, driver, and weapons-operator.
Her feet sport only two thick toes, wide-set and claw-tipped as her fingers, with commensurately thicker digits. Since the toes are used mostly for balance and running, they're less delicately protected, sporting the thick skin of her joints, and chitin plating over the top half that all but protects them from harm.
-Biology & Internals of a Crown Princess:
-General Biology: Much of the makeup of Va'x is consistent with something along the lines of some kind of insect or arachnid. The majority of her body, excepting the particular joints she requires for fine motor control, are carefully protected with layers of chitinous armor.
Her strength, compared to a typical human male, weighs in at nearly eight times the basic lifting and pushing power. Part of this is due to her increased size, but the majority is thanks to her exoskeleton, which allows her muscle-mass to work more effectively. Her stamina is similarly heightened, although she requires vast amounts of proteins to sustain heightened physical exertions for any real periods of time, as her body is not designed to store energy in large, convenient pockets, such as fatty deposits that mammals have such easy access to.
Perhaps the most notable of her oddities is the fashion in which her carapace and flesh react to exposure to blood or other vital fluids. The pigmentation of her body changes radically brilliant colors, usually determined by the species which the blood is from, will appear wherever it soaks in. In her culture, warriors who appear to be riotously colored all over are considered highly sought-after mates, being obviously successful combatants.
-Respiratory & Circulatory System: Unlike most mammals with their lungs and centralized breathing systems, Va'x utilizes tiny holes scattered around her carapace deliver oxygen directly to her muscular structure, and release carbon dioxide the same way. Toxins, however are disposed of by her lymphatic system, which is akin to the circulatory system found in mammals and other creatures. She has a copper-based lymph system, meaning that her vital fluids appear bluish-green upon examination.
-Nervous System: Her 'brain' is distributed in nerve-clusters throughout her body, rather than in a singular hub, as a result, damage to her body can reduce her mental capacity, and in some cases, her memory, depending on the area affected and severity of the injury.
The secondary purpose of her widely-distributed brain-matter is to literally allow each of her limbs a small section dedicated to fine control. Instead of forcing her to be merely competent with her four arms, two legs and tail, she's able to readily perform fine motor-tasks with each, and suffer no failure of skill when using the others simultaneously.
-Diet & Reproduction: Va'x is, like many other higher-order creatures, an omnivore. In her case, however, it is bit farther of a stretch than some might realize. Owing to her body's unique design, and certain requirements imposed by her size and exoskeleton, the Tenochitii requires a vast amount of metallic compounds, in order to provide the strength for her body's structure, as well as increasing her neural system's reaction speeds. Her saliva can, when she needs it to, act as a caustic solution, making metals malleable and easily swallowed, where her advanced digestive system will take care of the rest. The damage this does to flesh and organic compounds is immense, and renders them nutritionally useless, and destroys genetic code. As a result, she rarely uses this on anything but it's intended victim, metals.
In a somewhat odd turn of events, her reproductive and digestive systems are inextricably linked, serving at cross purposes in multiple ways. She, of course, would require larger amounts of food when carrying young, and, thanks to her species reliance on heavy minerals, a commensurately larger intake of metals as well. She can store these by increasing the density of her chitin plates, though it makes her heavier, and a bit clumsy.
In addition, her digestive system is capable of separating genetic fragments from individuals she consumes, examining and coding it into her own genetic stores, from which she can examine and splice features or traits into those she births.
In total, the extent of her reproductive system is tangled up with the distributed mass of her brain-matter. Much of her own internal space is compromised, wherever possible of 'storage cells', which serve no purpose but to store genetic data she finds, discovers, or steals. In addition, much of the extra intellect that is available to her, thanks to her commensurately larger mental capacity is devoted to a sort of organic genetic laboratory, which her reproductive system is the central focus of.
The larger the samples of the genetic traits she's exposed to, the easier it becomes for her to add such things to her offspring.
Defenses: Any number of her natural adaptations can be considered to be defensive in nature. Sharp, hardened chitin-claws. The bladed tip of her tail. Her caustic, metal-eating saliva. Even her size, or the sheer strength she can summon are all dangerous to the average human. But, biology has granted her a few further defenses.
Her body is laden with pheremone-and-scent producing glands, ostensibly for purposes of communication and control, as she is the beginning-stage version of a Tenochitii queen. She can, given knowledge of the subject's genetic makeup, or enough trial and error, concoct overpowering mixtures, capable of inducing catatonia, arousal, and, in rare cases, utter obedience. The last would require something unusually similar to her in genetic makeup, however.
Her tongue, an extendable, prehensile muscle, is capable of stretching nearly six feet out of her jaws, and is typically capable of grabbing and hauling in objects, with a bit of assistance. The tip, and first foot-and-a-half, are covered in rough ridged protrusions, rather akin to sharkskin, which seems to be built to grab and dig into flesh. Glands seated in this section of the tongue are responsible for secretion of the dangerous saliva she can summon.
-Genetic Knowledge/Research:
Homo Sapien: 80% of Genome decoded.
Vorishartist(Joe, the catboy): 54% of Genome decoded.
-Cultural Research and Knowledge: (Based entirely on interaction with others. Va'x is a bit naive in this area.)
-Those considered 'friends' should be greeted with hugs and passionate kisses. It is polite.
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