Mothmen

The Mothmen are a mysterious, intelligent species of insectoids first encountered by ACC Pilots Locke and Edgar in 2020 during their investigation of the ARP.  Both Pilots were rescued from being trapped underground by ARP enclave Watchmen by a Mothman, which then attempted to communicate with them in broken English. Edgar then reciprocated first contact by trying to shoot the Mothman with his sidearm, only to actually mysteriously somehow shoot himself in the side instead. The Mothman then directed the two Pilots to the cave's exit and promptly disappeared.
Locke and Edgar both assumed the creature to be simply another Engineer monstrosity and did not feel the incident was worth reporting to ACC. At around the same time, Strigoi Pilot Ava Ionescu Lupus would also encounter a Mothman, possibly the same one, while attempting to meet up with Locke and Edgar at a prearranged location. The Mothman rescued Ava from a Watchmen patrol by causing a small avalanche, and again attempted to communicate with the Pilot, though apparently with some difficulty. Ava quickly left after exchanging brief introductions.
The Mothmen would not be encountered again for some time, even after the liberation of the ARP enclave by the AmC. One, retroactively given the nickname "Dusty" by the crew of the AC Space Corvette, unexpectedly appeared onboard the forementioned ship while it was docked with Libra during the ill-fated ACC investigative expedition. During the Westringia attack, "Dusty" appeared seemingly out of thin air and attempted to leave the ship carrying an unconscious Anna Graham and the recovered cult artifact. After being shot at by Han Nu, the Mothman disappeared again, and was not seen by the crew afterwards. Later on, during the return journey, it was realized by the corvette's crew that the dust noticed and complained about by Anna over the past two weeks was probably being shed by the Mothman, indicating that it had been onboard the ship the entire time.
Unbeknownst to the ACC crew and Pilots, "Dusty" also made contact with and assisted the EuF's special operations team also onboard the station at the time, rescuing them from several paranormal encounters, concluding with rescuing Angela Watson from an alternate dimension and guiding her to make contact with David Frieden. After being forced from the corvette, "Dusty" encountered and warned Tora Foster that the unusual occurrences on the station were only going to get worse with time. "Dusty"'s fate following both the EuF and ACC missions to Libra are unknown.
Whether or not the Mothmen are an Engineer-made species is ambiguous. The Engineers, and later Kantoku Corp, certainly enjoyed extensive operability within the boundaries of the ARP for a number of years, but with the myth of the Mothman and similar cryptids predating their discovery by up to half a century prior leave some room for doubt. The Mothmen's complex understanding of human language, psychology and culture would imply that, if they were not artificially created and indoctrinated with such knowledge like other Engineer-made species, they would themselves come from a comparably advanced culture. However, their rare encounters with humans invariably seem to be with people unequipped to ask such questions of them, despite Mothmen seeming to generally be rather cooperative. Those few Pilots who know of their existence believe them to simply be more man-made monsters.
===Abilities=== 
Mothmen appear to possess powerful "Psionic" abilities. Though witness accounts are to be taken with skepticism, Mothmen have displayed abilities including invisibility, teleportation, telekinesis and possibly even telepathy. Examination of the "dust" left onboard the corvette revealed it to in fact be microscopic scales very similar to those shed by contemporary moths from their wings. These scales exhibit negative-index metamaterial properties and are speculated to allow Mothmen to somehow influence electromagnetic fields, possibly explaining their supposed "invisibility" and "teleportation" abilities. The "telepathy" has been postulated to possibly actually be a form of hypnotic suggestion, and Mothmen have been observed to have difficulty communicating with Pilots with cyberbrains, apparently due to the computer elements of the brain providing some resistance to the Mothman's influence.
Either way, what is clear is that the Mothmen's ability to communicate is reliant on the listener's own vocabulary. As the Mothmen lack a spoken language of their own, they can only describe subjects and concepts using words the listener is already familiar with. However, this also means that Mothmen can communicate in basically any language.
Despite having wings, the measurements taken from CCTV footage of the encounter on the corvette indicate these are vestigial and too small to allow for flight. 
===Biology=== 
Mothmen are enormously tall, standing at a towering 9ft. However, they usually appear squatting or sitting with their knees up, giving them a more rounded appearance. Their figures tend to thin and lithe, with long legs and arms connecting to a thorax, with an anterior head and posterior abdomen. They have four arms, ending in three-digit hands with long, segmented fingers and a thumb. Like typical insects, they have an exoskeleton, and the presence of spiracles along the thorax, abdomen and inside of the hind legs indicates that their respiratory system is likely very similar. The rearmost legs emerge at the point between the abdomen and thorax, allowing the Mothman to stand upright, while the "arms" emerge from the anterior end of the thorax, near the head, in a position analogous to shoulders. This gives the Mothman an overall human-like silhouette. A combination of natural curvature of the end of the thorax's carapace and a mane of bushy hair gives the Mothman a hunch-backed look. A short but distinct neck separates the head from the thorax, allowing the Mothman to turn its head, albeit to a much more limited degree than a human would be able to. The remaining degrees of vision are adequately covered by two relatively small compound eyes on either side of the head. The most distinctive feature of the Mothman is the feather-like antennae protruding from the sides of the head above the eyes. These appendages grant the Mothmen excellent olfactory senses. Like most moth species, they appear to lack mouth parts, and it's unclear how they receive sustenance.
It is not known if Mothmen have an infant larval stage of their life cycle, or even how long Mothmen are capable of surviving given their apparent inability to consume things.
Category:PACYOA: TE
Category:TE Species