*deep inhale* Ok yall, Let's get to the lore of the wanderlust universe!
**note** This is not a hard sci-fi, and I won't pretend it is. If something is so egregiously wrong that its making you go insane, you may politely inform me, and I shall do my best to fix it.
The Universe:
We start off on a distant world, known lovingly to its inhabitants as "Catszama".
Due to its unstable and volatile weather and climate changes, the species that evolve there tend to have a common trait: the incredible ability to evolve on the spot.
Now, we aren't talking Pokémon, I promise. This ability manifested in the people who called this planet home (the Exovi) like a second puberty, if you will.
Their evolution from child to adult takes place in a chrysalis, much like a butterfly's. The secondary event isn't tied to the primary event at all. It can take place before puberty, after, or even never. What it IS tied to is a similar sense that birds have for weather, but on a much larger scale. Their bodies can sense when a shift is coming, and as it arrives, they pull a butterfly and become soup.
This allows their very DNA to reconstruct itself in accordance to the environment on the outside of the cocoon. When they emerge they are much more likely to survive. (This means they are also RIDICULOUSLY susceptible to cancer) :(
Because of this, The Exovi became very adapted to space travel, and eventually made points of communication, and occasionally trade, between two other planets with sentient species, on either solar system from them. This formed the Ivaswi So Banitu, or, Unity of Exploration.
Their nearest neighbor, known to them as Detra, (but to the people as Idune, the name Detra will come up later)
Idune was a desert world, on the surface. It's slow rotation allowed for days over two earth years long, and at the peak of its day, its star, Nas, blasted the sand into glass, transforming its surface into a sea of glass.
Dispite it's volatile and deadly surface during the day, its night actually supports life. Life originally evolved beneath the surface of the world, in a vast and complex system of massive caves. Some plant life eventually evolved in cave entrances, and then made its way into the night. It was followed by small mammals, and their predators. Currently the night side of the planet hosts less then a hundred species of animals, all highly migratory. This includes a large herd species, known as Ic'gratu. They are about the size of small elephants, converted in coarse black or brown hair, with large horns and pig like snouts. Their predators, called Riad va'en, or, Dune Hunters, are slick black beasts like the mix between a scorpion and a massive panther.
The cave system hosts a much more beautiful and diverse ecosystem, including the hardy Idunians.
(Little fun fact. My friend and I were makibg various worlds around the same time, and happened to make complimentary races! The Idunians are the result of his lore, so this is his picrew and race.^^^This is his character, Zuri)
These humanoids celebrate a culture of music and the conquering of their own rough world. It is common practice to emerge from the cave system and hunt the Riad va'en, right up until they started exploring with space communications.
Their other newly minted partner, was V’etchetsvoli.
This much, much larger superearth is home to its people, the Ambwi. Often above seven feet tall, the Abwi lack their own immune systems.
This results in one of their most distinctive features, other than their height and bright coloration.
Mushrooms! Colorful fungal growths sprout from crevices in their bodies. (that used to be vestigial gills!) The spores flow throughout their veins, poisoning external bodies and securing when coming into contact with the air through wounds. (This means they are very susceptible to blockages, blood clots, and heart attacks.)
Once an individual has perished, the fungi will slowly absorb the body, growing larger and larger until it forms a massive tree-like plant. These are absolutely sacred to the ambwi, and while generally a peace loving people, harming one is an act of war. They generally have a open court in the center of their houses in which a 'graveyard' of sorts allows the passed family member to live on with the family.
The Story:
A few decades after the UE was established, the Exovic scientists began to recieve very worrying data. Catszama was set to experience a massive change, one that could spell the end of the Exovi. It was too extreme for their systems to handle, and to the terror of the scientists, only about 4% of their race could handle it, leaving the planet nearly deserted, and billions dead.
They searched for an answer to save their people, but experiment after experiment failed, from domed cities, to satellites. They just couldn't beat nature.
So they turned their effort to one last hope, the UoE. They sent diplomats to Idune and V’etchetsvoli, pleading with them to adopt a portion of their race, to save them from extinction.
With the evolutionary powers, and the technology they had developed, they could redesign their next generations to live comfortably on each world, and those that had already changed could live in designed habitats.
To their eternal relief, the respective races agreed, and they began to build massive transport ships, to carry their people to a new world.
Though a few stayed behind, either too afraid, too attached, or too distrusting to come, the majority made it safe to V’etchetsvoli.
Idune was another story all together, and the Exovi were once again struck by immeasurable tragedy.
Of the sixteen ships that were sent, five survived. They approached cautiously, hanging back from the intense sun by hiding in the planet's shadow. Due to a miscalculation, they drifted into the light, and the engines over heated. Eight ships burned up, falling into the atmosphere. Three more landed in the night, but they were attacked and killed by Dunehunters. Two landed near the dawn, far enough into the light that the Dunehunters would not venture near, and close enough to the night that they would not be vaporized by the sun.
The other two landed in the dusk, with a similar story. These two became the roots for two peoples, the Taedomi, and the Edomi. The Idunians searched for them, but after finding the twisted ruins, they believed there was no saving them, and mourned.
The Edomi had none of the technology they once possessed, and after a few generations, what was science and fact turned into opinion, legend, and myth. They became a nomadic people, full of rich mythology and highly spiritual.
The taedomi still possessed some of the technology and was able to retain their purpose, and scientific knowledge. As a result, they found the Idunians first.
Avoneen, the daughter of the Edomi leaders, and Cyrad, her betrothed eventually found the Idunians, and are celebrated historical figures to this day.
After the reunion of peoples, they reconnected with their sisters on V’etchetsvoli. They lived in harmony until the fire nation attacked until they began to seek more. Adventurers found they were still called to the stars, just like their ancestors on Catszama, and they loaded ships, built them bigger, faster, and with more endurance.
They spread out, discovering more worlds, inhabiting the ones with life, but no intelligent peoples. They had yet to find any, until they came across a planet, a little rocky world about the size of mars called Ansta.
It was the home of the Sol-li, a Cybertronic race, and refuges from the planet Noska.
They were created by the Noskans, long ago, as simple AI's. After evolving into their own race, capable of real thought and reproduction. They had warred with the Noskans, eventually taking flight to find their own world.
The Exovi traveled with a portion of Sol-li to Noska, imploring the Noskan people ro reconsider. When they refused, hostility quickly bloomed, and The Exovi were banned from Noska. That ban still stands as of Wanderlust. It's what Ambassador Sotr had spent his whole life trying to change.
The three races over came much of their hostility in the following centuries, and both the Noskans, and the Sol-li joined the UoE.
After Noska and Ansta, they simply explored for decades. They colonized moons and planets, terraforming them, introducing them to the UoE.
They believed that was all. Every last pearl of civilization the universe had created.
That was until they found Oron.
Its people, even taller and sturdier than the Ambwi were much less developed then most of the races in the UoE. They were very, very far out of the way, the last inhabited planet on the outskirts of the UoE. In the end, they did not pay much attention to the Oroni, but perhaps they should have. They were, after all, the ones to find the final members of the UoE, not the Exovi.
Humanity. Terrans. Further than any other world, lost in a sea of stars.
The Oroni found them first. Inspired by the Exovi, but without their evolutionary powers, they created ships, operated by ai, to explore. To find worlds with life. And they found one. However, they did not account for inteligence. They thought they were the last, they were alone in their outskirts of the neighborhood.
So their bots gathered a sample of the most prolific creatures, bringing them back to Oron. It was not until later it was discovered they had accidentally kidnapped a group of sentient people's. When the Exovi caught wind of this they were horrified, and transported the Terrans back to Earth. A deal was struck for forgiveness, and eventually (after a couple of decades and some EXTREMELY suspicious humans) Exovi came to live on earth as well.
Several years pass, before they build a ship of with the best of both technologies, to introduce humanity to the UoE. So they send the Intrepid.
The rest is history.
