Kwenarans

Kwenarans are an all-female human-like species found a few dozen light years from Earth.

## History

The appearance of the Kwenaran people on their planet is no older than 26,000 years ago. No archaeological evidence predates this appearance, leading to speculation that the creation myths might reflect the mysterious 'Preservers' that Captain Kirk speculated on in the 2260s.

The Kwenarans developed their technologies and society after the die-out of men on their planet, creating one of several matriarchal societies in the Galaxy. Kwenaran historians noted cycles of civilization following out from their 19-year calendar cycle, the generational 76-year cycle, the 152-year cycle, and the procession of the equinoxes along the constellations. Their historians record in myth and legend 12 civilizational collapses across nearly the entire planet, the last two of which occurred in 2020 (Earth Year); 7481-7482 (Kwenaran year) and in 1945 / 7405. The collapse in 7405 was a result of planetary war destroying several of the larger empires and creating new empires killing 453 million people worldwide. The destruction in 7481-7482 was a result of the creation of a technocratic medical-fascist world government from the pieces of the old empires that killed 2.9 billion individuals, leading the names Bryanna, Davida, and Olivia being stricken from use by parents up until the present day.

After the technocratic collapse, a new birth of freedom occurred across the planet, limiting the power of governments to prevent such a collapse from happening again; the few who complained or thought the technocrats were 'misguided' or 'just didn't have the right people in charge' were loudly shouted down to the point that no one is willing to support or defend technocratic rule to this day. Space exploration came about with several space stations outside the Van Allen belts of Kwenara, and a lunar post being built in 7510. Evidence of ancient Kwenaran space travel became obvious with an old asteroid station that appeared several thousand years old with Giltigan (celtic-like) proto-writing appearing in the machinery and labels of the station. This solidified the belief in Kwenaran society that there had been multiple collapses on their planet, one of fire (volcanos), one of Earth (earthquakes), and one of water (tsunami from meteorite), and one of ice/flood (last ice age). Kwenarans resolved to bring their people to space to protect them from planetary collapse, and soon after creating several stations in their solar system discovered evidence of civilizations outside their system when a space probe went through their solar system, one of the Earth Voyager craft (7536 / 2076 AD).

The thought of an alien race was a shock to their cultures and religions, but the more scientific among them thought they needed to explore, leading to the development of FTL drives and gravity plating in their ships, and by 7612 / 2152 AD, the Kwenarans encountered their first humans on the NX-01, proving to the many doubters that men were not just a myth after all. Humans had an awkward first contact with the Kwenarans, with mixed emotional and political signals by the men and women of the Enterprise NX-01, but news of the discovery of alien men swept the planet.

Some called it a hoax and wishful thinking; others the end of Kwenaran civilization and fearing domination and subjugation by these Earth men. Cinema plays began to be made like Earth's 1950s sci-fi movies with about the same production quality telling of lurid tales of men coming to conquer women, starting off scares among some of the people. Tales of the Earth-Romulan War scared off Kwenara from joining the Federation until 2176, when the rapidly expanding Federation proved to be worthwhile to join, when they discovered that it was more of a trade and mutual defense organization than an attempt by men to colonize their planet.

Even when they joined, Kwenarans did not join Starfleet until 2245, with 12 leaving their homes to go to Earth to join the Starfleet. Since then, several tens of thousands have signed up; worries that the best would go to Starfleet and not to the Kwenaran Stellar Navy were unfounded. Some Kwenarans did eventually marry Earth men, finding them to be suitable mates, though not many Earth women wanted Kwenarans, to their dismay, especially after their children grew up. The first Kwenaran Starfleet captain was Kishara Beewynndoghter, an equatorial Kwenaran from Hazarkos, one of the older republics, in 2265.

## Physical Description

Kwenarans are an all-female species of humanoids that appear native to Alpha Teiidae III, which they have called Kwenara. Similar to Earth's whiptail lizard, these humanoids are all female, and through social selection pressures, are all extremely attractive to humans from Earth.

Skin, hair, and eye coloration follow the same ranges as Earth humans, though there are shades of green, blue, yellow, and even purple eyes that look particularly vivid, and are considered more attractive to others. Green and blue are dominant eye colors, with yellow, gray, and purple occurring frequently as well. Brown and black eyes are rare outside of those with increased melanin, and those with increased melanin do often have hazel, yellow, and gray eyes, which through social selection have become quite common. Hair coloration is the same as with humans, though blonde, red, auburn, and light brown are more common than dark brown or black hair.

Kwenaran bone and muscle density are about 3/4 of the way between human males and females, resulting in a 5'6" Kwenaran weighting not 120 lb but more like 150 lb, and appearing as trim as a fit 120-lb Earth female. Their canine teeth are slightly longer than Earth females.

Kwenarans are between 5'6" and 7'2", and have socially selected for curvier and more endowed features, including fuller lips, smaller noses, and wider eyes. There are of course variations in what people consider attractive across the spectrum, with some Kwenarans appearing taller and more muscular, though still looking feminine in appearance, matching what some on Earth would call 'Amazons', usually on the northwestern continent of Gathrija, where the taller, more muscular women tend to run their nations, while the smaller and more classically female tend to take on the traditional (by 19th-20th century American standards) female roles.

Reproduction is unique amongst Kwenarans, who all have XZ or XW chromosomes, and are compatible with Earth humans, though such children will typically have XX or XY chromosomes if a Kwenaran and human male have children. A Kwenaran and human female will tend to have XZ or XW chromosome children. Kwenarans who initiate mating form a pseudo-phallus and pseudoscrotum and become the W/Z chromosome donor, while the other partner will become the birth mother and donate the X chromosomes to their children. Mating pairs can switch back and forth between roles during the lifetime of their relationship, resulting in complicated family names and lineages. Z chromosome children appear classically male before puberty, while W chromosome children appear female before puberty; both develop into adult females by age 18 at the latest. Pregnancy is nowadays relatively safe enough that abortions are not needed to save the mothers' lives.

Kwenarans have no endometrial ablation, but rather have oestrus in tune to the lunar cycle of their planet during full moons, with a number of factors determining which member of a mating pair initiating or receiving attention. Less common, but similar to the Earth whiptail lizard, a woman without a mate can self-inseminate to create a daughter, though this daughter will be a near perfect clone of the mother.

Kwenarans are attracted to men and women, and have a strong attraction to human men, partly due to a stronger chemical reaction to their pheromones, but partly due to not having any men on their planet.

Kwenarans are broadly divided into four main overarching groups: northern/southern, broadly looking like Europeans, often having hooded eyes (think Jennifer Lawrence eyes), and upper temperate broadly looking European with unhooded eyes; middle to lower temperate broadly looking like Native Americans and American Hispanics; and equatorial broadly looking like Africans and Asian Indians. Kwenarans broadly have straight hair, with curly hair being only about 12% of the populations. Of the 18 billion, about 12 billion live on planet, the rest living on the few colonies and space stations within and without the solar system. They broadly denote themselves by geolocation rather than skin color, being either equatorial, middle-western, middle-eastern, and northern/southern.

Shorter Kwenarans tend towards left-handedness, creativity, and intuitiveness, while the taller Kwenarans tend towards right-handedness, logical thinking, and greater geospatial awareness. All Kwenarans have greater brain hemispherical connections, and greater linguistic and communicative abilities.

## Culture

The Kwenaran culture is matriarchal, obviously, though there are variations in some women being more dominant and some more submissive; all consider themselves feminine in their own way.

Inheritance is by birth-mother, as is the family name, which takes the name of the birth-mother and donor-mother. Names are typically composed of two parts, like Beewynn - 'bee joy' - in Old English, and have special meaning to the parents, and typically alliterate. Family traditions are handed down from birth mother to birth mother, and oral histories have a special place in each family, including family recipes handed down for centuries. The donor-mother is culturally expected to provide for the birth-mother's needs up to, at, and after birth of their children.

Kwenarans typically dress for comfort, though they wear clothing with a wide variety of styles and cuts, and more revealingly when attempting to attract a partner. Traditional clothing of the various cultures is widely treasured by the cultures who deeply respect their heritage. What is widely considered high cultural clothing for much of the southern continents, occurring around the 16th century on Earth, resembles Earth's regency era clothing, with a woman's cut of that era male jacket, a low-cut button-up shirt attached to a low-waisted dress, with strong bold colors rather than floral designs. Several nations in the northern continents colonized from Thorasa have a high cultural clothing resembling low-cut victorian Earth dresses with jackets styled like typical victorian male jackets in female cut. The Kwenaran equivalent of the tuxedo for formal occasions features a pencil skirt and tails, while the proper attire for the Presiding Matriarch (planetary president) is morning dress (long coat, with a below-knee loose skirt, both gray.).

Dancing is common with style ranging from analogs to reels and jigs to waltzes, jives, and shags, and several semi-combat dances resembling capoeira. Martial arts are popular, with styles resembling judo/jiu-jitsu, kung fu, karate, krav maga, and tae kwon do present.

There are 842 different languages on Kwenara with multiple dialects each. They broadly fall into a few major groups, with their earth analogs - celtic, germanic, anatolian, baltic, sanskrit - not that the languages fall into those Earth families, but that the sounds of the language and their grammars tend to follow those Earth languages, and their writing systems resemble those Earth languages in shape and formation.

Government is very local-based and most decisions are made within a matriclan. Governance at the planetary level is largely restricted to planetary defense, interstellar relations, and interstellar trade, with very little ability to interfere with the internal affairs of the various nations of Kwenara. Two prior widespread civilizational collapses taught the people of Kwenara not to trust their supranational governments with too much power; one was war, the other was a technocratic medical-fascist collapse that killed 2.9 billion Kwenarans. Nations on Kwenara (98) are also similarly very limited in their abilities to interfere in local affairs, with 59 of them being representative republics, some of those parliamentary in fashion, the others being various forms of monarchy. In both kinds of government, the executive holds very little power to avoid the corruption and concentration of power that nearly destroyed more than half the nations of the planet.

Religion is still strong amongst Kwenarans despite the revelation of alien races. Surprisingly the largest religion, Frijewerðung, has a Skyfather (Tiwuz), with the only male pronouns and declensions left in any Kwenaran language, as the originator along with his wife, the Landmother. In this belief system, the two came from a faraway land and brought the first women to Kwenara, but the men among them began dying and could not bear them children, making the Landmother (Jorðe) weep with sadness enough to salt the oceans of Kwenara with her tears. Tiwuz put the five women (representing the five major kinds of Kwenarans) to sleep and gave them his ability to put children into women, allowing the women to continue their races after their men died out.

Several polytheistic religions are still present, widely resembling celtic and germanic pantheons, with male gods present but having been slain by various monsters after protecting and defending the goddesses. Some religions pray to resurrect the male gods in the coming age, while others venerate them and their bravery and valor, promising to honor their example in the worshippers' daily lives.

Common festivals celebrated to this day: Midsummer and Midwinter, celebrating the respective solstices; Bas-Har, the harvest festival before winter, and Aldranaght - night of elders, remembering the dead in one's family, followed by Aldradaej, to celebrate the lives of your family still with you, including friends and non-related ones. Lady Day on the spring equinox celebrating the power of women to create and carry life, being a donor-mother and birth-mother. Gohl, also called Midwinter, was also Mother's Night, the night when the sun began to renew life, a three-day festival.

## Economy

The Kwenaran economy is based on agriculture, resource extraction, entertainment, technology, and services. Agriculture is quite efficient, with crop rotation a long-standing practice, and soilless suspended netpot growth using grow lights having been used for over 300 years to end hunger across the planet, allowing city dwellers to grow food indoors without pesticides. Mining for various elements is one of the more dangerous jobs, along with construction, and the stronger Kwenarans typically occupy these jobs.

Entertainment is varied, with a variety of genres of cinematic presentations, home serial presentations, music, and electronic games. Music has a wide variety, with the most popular styles resembling folk music of the celtic cultures, germanic cultures, spanish, indian, and japanese cultures; droning instruments resembling the hurdy-gurdy, bagpipes, and nyckelharpa are common across all cultures, as is music widely resembling Faun, Skald, Santiano, and Mediaeval Baebes's music forms the traditional basis for many cultures' folk music.

Medicine is largely naturopathic as a result of the widespread health issues caused by centralized, technocratic control of health. Herbal and plant-based remedies for health issues are widely known and used by the population, with hospitals largely used for traumatic issues like broken bones, weapon injuries, and major surgeries. Most births use midwives and take place in special clinics for that purpose.

Money is vertically oriented plastic money with integrated circuit containing a cryptographic key tied to a precious metal held in vaults around the planet. Coins of copper and silver are used in daily transactions. Coins are divided into 1, 3, 6, 12, 30, and 60 flathna, with the world currency the kinra, in bills of the same denominations, along with 120, 300, and 600. Some countries have decimal currencies, others have currencies with 20 cents or 120 cents.

## Planet

Planet: Alpha Teiidae III (Kwenara III)

The planet has 8 continents and many microcontinents, and only a southern icecap. The planet has a CO2 concentration of 100 ppm, and oxygen of 23%. Forests and grasslands are more common than earth with fewer deserts across the planet.

The day is 23 hours 55 minutes long, and the year is 372 days in length, with 12 months of 31 days a piece, and five days of what is considered a full moon.

Wildlife is comparable to Earth before the megafauna extinction around 10,000 BC, with numerous large mammals, and horses from eohippus to modern size across the planet.