#radelopes

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The relative sizes of the species of Atago, and a human for scale

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Species of The Atago Project

RADELOPES Radelopes are mammal-like, radically symmetrical, antelope-giraffe analogues. They got an early start to space travel, and quickly set up colonies on many inhabited and uninhabited planets. While they added amazing interstellar infrastructure and communication, they have a reputation of being controlling, heavily taxing, and to some, slavers. They communicate through chromatophores on their leathery side ‘shields’ FUNGALS Fungals are a inseparable symbiosis of a fungus, which performs sensory, reproductive, and nervous operations, and an animal, which performs muscular, respiratory, and digestive operations. They evolved on a low-gravity planet, so they tend to need support equipment to go on most planets. They allied with the lobsters early on. When the Radelopes met them, they were considered hideous and unnatural even to a spacefaring society, so there is a grudge between the two races. The fungals, partly because of the grudge and partly in an effort to save other races, found the Atagoans and colonized their mars-like sister planet with the lobsters’ help. They are determined to be the first ones to make contact with the Atagoans and protect and guide them. They communicate through sign language and organ-like tones from their reproductive ‘smokestacks’ LOBSTERS Lobsters are large crustacean-like creatures that evolved to dig colonies underground. They made first contact with the Fungals and are closely interwoven with them. They evolved in a high gravity environment so due to the high liftoff cost from their home, most Lobsters on other planets are descended from the first lobster lunar colonists. They communicate through pheromones and sign language. ATAGOANS Atagoans are amphibian-like creatures that require a humid environment. They have waited quite a while to travel to other planets because they know they are not alone, from fallen pieces of stray satellites that crash landed on their planet. They are responsible for the Black Spot, and have a history of genocide and racism against the Charrots, but they are getting better. They communicate through speech and some whistling CHARROTS Charrots are mammal-like creatures evolved to a great number of environments, including trees, coasts, tundras, mountains, and deserts. They have less advanced technology than the Atagoans, and were hunter-gatherers for an eternity until they were slowly let into some atagoan cultures. They do eventually achieve access to atagoan interstellar travel, but it takes awhile. They communicate through speech. THE BLACK SPOT The Black Spot is an ecosystem of robotic creatures with varying intelligence from plant-like to super-intelligent. It was created by and for a consciousness in a supercomputer built by Atagoan scientists, when they accidentally let a artificial intelligence simulation get access to the facility’s robot factories. The researchers quickly withdrew and, realizing the intriguing nature of the breach, left the private facility to be forgotten by society for several decades. It was only rediscovered when the growing ecosystem of robotic organisms was big enough to be seen on satellite imaging, looking like a black spot. They quickly become spacefaring due to their extreme adaptability and intelligence. They communicate through non visible light spectra.

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Current species and their territories at the beginning of episode 1: First Contact. The galaxy and stars are not to scale so they are realistically much smaller, but the Fungals and Radelopes have many more systems. The Radelopes also have many other species in their territory, but they haven’t been planned as major roles yet.

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Here it is so it’s bigger and doesn’t look bad lmao

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Draw the squad!

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This is actually a really good character study format...

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What do your races do to entertain themselves?

I’m gonna have to think about this.

Radelopes are pretty similar to humans. They play games often involving running and chasing, but usually not things related to . They also like intellectually stimulating activities like puzzles and games, and social games like gambling or charades. Basically everything humans like except the predatory things like throwing, tackling, and fighting except in the context of male rivalry for courtship.

Fungals… I haven’t thought about their society much but they evolved to catch small animals from rat-sized to bug-sized, and they are scavengers too. Keeping this in mind, they probably like games like match-3 and puzzles even more than humans, and probably like hide-and-go-seek, as well as all of the common ‘social games’ that come with being a group-based society, like most intelligent organisms. Oh, they probably like medicine/construction ‘games’ because newborns require a lot of medical care while their body/(bodies?) fixes itself together and makes common mistakes.

Lobsters like games involving finding things and hiding, because they are kinda like naked mole rats and dig around underground and on the surface to find hidden food like fungus. They really like social games.

Atagoans like games involving chasing things and finding things because they eat some fruit and berries, but mainly eat fish. They also like games involving throwing things because they sometimes use rocks or harpoons to hunt from the surface of the water. Most of their sports occur underwater.

Charrots enjoy many games that humans and most great apes like, and are pretty social. Some societies play games like ‘hide from the bad salamander monsters’ or ‘take food and our things back from the bad salamander monsters’ but your guess is as good as mine as to why…

Oof… Black Spot creatures vary in their types and levels in intelligence as much as the animals in any other temperate forest would. The diplomats that have been chosen by the supercomputer and modified to be more intelligent, however, are designed to be pleasing to Atagoans at least socially, but they usually also like games involving keeping track of dozens of things at once, and puzzles, because all of the more intelligent Black Spot creatures have to perform manual maintenance on their own bodies. They also have to repair their bodies when newborns burst out from their insides