Elves

“*Our race once ruled the stars, we built planets, raised up species, forged an empire the like of which no one had ever seen... and you are what we have been reduced to? I must say I am disappointed.*”
―An Ancient talking to Starlee

Elves is a catch all term used to refer to a group of tall, pointy eared, humanoid species who fall inside a perqulier phenomenon of sharing a similar genetic heritage despite coming from vastly different worlds ad have drastically differing levels of technology. A nickname afforded to them by humans due to the race's similarities to the fabled mythological creatures Elves themselves can be broken down into various sub races each with their own individual home world, with many originally being convinced they evolved on that planet. Still many of these scattered races all show the genetic signs of having a common ancestor called the Ancients, a race theorized to have once dominated the galaxy ten million years ago, with these race being the evolved survivors from their ancestors colonies when the majority of the race simply disappeared.

The truth however is far more tragic. The Ancient's, correctly being called Palbion's, were a race of unparalleled mastery of the sciences of the universe, having unlocked many secrets allowing them to bend reality to their will. Their empire once stretched the known galaxy and they ruled millions of worlds with absolute authority. They were known to uplift and speed up the evolution of many races, create whole worlds and even cross the massive expanse of the galaxy in mere moments. However at the height of their glory they encountered another growing galactic power now known as the Creators and entered into a war with them to control the fate of the galaxy. This conflict known as the War of the Gods was the largest ever seen in the galaxy and saw trillions die and almost leading to the extinction of the Creators, as the Palbion's attempted to commit genocide against their race. In desperation the Creators unleashed a dangerous bio weapon the Xenecromorphs which effectively broke the back of the Palbion's, ironically driving them to near extinction.

Since then the Palbion's broke into three known sub races. The groups called the primitives who either fled to unknown worlds or hid on their colonies o escape the Xenecromorphs plague. Here they regressed and devolved into new pre-sentient species from decades of inbreeding before many of them revolved into new primitive societies that can be found on many worlds. The next is the group called the 'successors' who were either those colonies who managed to preserve some of their ancient technology or were primitives who redeveloped into new post industrial societies and managing to get back into space. The common feature about these two groups is that despite general similar appearance and some common traits, they are all have wildly differing cultures and histories, nearly none of them knowing of their former glory. The last group are the pure breed Palbion's or Ancients that managed to survive the War of the Gods into the modern age.

These Ancient's have managed to survive through a variety of means: a few placed themselves into stasis, others hid within titanic planet sized structures, while a few simply lived out the fall of their race before returning to the galaxy at large, many still living onto the modern era. As such they became a slumbering empire, waiting for a time when they could return an lead the races of the galaxy to war against their ancient enemy.

## Biology

### Sub Races

All 'Elves' share a set of common characteristics, which is a slender figure, almond shaped eyes, above average height for most galactic species, longer than average lifespans and a highly attuned nervous system. These nervous systems not only give them excellent natural senses but also makes them feel everything much more intently than many other creatures, including emotions resulting in them coming across with flippant personalities due to them rapidly switching between the extremes of the emotional spectrum. While different sub races are affected by this to varying degrees, it is most often accepted that nearly all elves are prone to highly eccentric behavior ranging from the mundane to even the dangerous. This is because of their emotions can easily lead all elves to become very obsessive on singular goals or people they care about: meaning that those who take up violence can very easily get addicted to it. However the emotional extremes of their personality often lead to one of two outcomes, the elves dethatching themselves from their emotions or becoming so obsessed they will kill themselves as they forget to eat or sleep. However this dedication to their obsessions does lead many elves to become masters in specific fields.

Interestingly the ancient Palbion's actually capitalised on the races over developed nervous system, using its advanced electrical signals as a way of completing a circuit in machinery to prevent those who were not of their race from using it. As such many pieces of Palbion tech will only respond to a them or an offshoot Elf sub race.

Elves are likely descended from a feline or cat like prehistoric species billions of years ago, due to many of the sub races having prominent canines and some sub races even growing light fur across their skin. Their bodies also cope with damage differently, as when injured a wound will often get worse for a few days before almost spontaneously healing itself as the body collects the necessary nutrients and antibodies to resolve the injury or infection in a single strike. Sadly it is for this reason the species is very vulnerable to the Xenecropmorph as once infected their internal biological defenses retract to prepare for a strike, but in doing so make it easier for the rapid infection to spread.

Interestingly it has been found Elves and humans can procreate, but due to the Elves having to mate several times over five years before a child can be born, it is very difficult and very rare for a 'half breed' to be produced from such relationships. Also this long winded reproduction process means that Elves also suffer lower than average birth rates.

#### Primitives

Primitive Elves can be found on dozens of inhabited worlds across the galaxy. Their level of technology is highly varied going from early industrial to even as far back as the stone age. Biologically they are often the most distinct from the original species often possessing a skin tone that matches the colour of their native star and a more muscular physique and drastically varying height depending on what world they come from. Some have even shown a ability to grow fur, likely a genetic throw back to their original species prehistoric routes.

Out of all the sub species they are generally the ones who are least affected by the obsessive emotional disorders. However this is due to them frequently suffering from the greatest genetic divergence from their original species. As such many have suffered a degradation of their nervous system to better cope with the rougher more primitive lifestyles. However due to this genetic divergence many have also seen their nervous systems readapt into new forms: a few sub races have shown telekinetic or electrical based abilities due to their nervous systems, and more than one in particular sub race has shown the ability to manipulate technology, phasing through objects and a few have even shown similar nervous system melding abilities like the Twi'sari. However the more radical the change the shorter the life expectancy of the race is.

#### Successors

Successor Elves are the most commonly seen on the galactic plain. Unlike their primitive cousins due to them maintaining some of their technology for longer or just simply living on those colonies worlds that were well suited to Palbion physiology, Successor's suffer less genetic divergence than their cousins and more or less maintain a similar appearance, although all still adopt a skin tone denoting the colour of their home systems sun and have varying heights depending on their gravity: although still all stand around 6ft at the least.

Palbion successor Elves typically have the hardest time dealing with their emotional mood swings and often driven more by instinct than by common sense. While older Elves (typically 500 to 800 years old) do find ways to control their emotions, many young elves are plagued with a sense of wander lust as an outlet for their emotions often leaving home before returning to start a family.

Unlike their primitive cousins, due to their nervous system staying largely intact many ELvish species have very long-life expediencies, most living a good thousand years, although one or two worlds have shown life expediencies of two thousand. Still due to their emotional instability and the dangers encountered on their long life only roughly 20% of most sub races population will die of old age. However some sub races have found social ways of containing their urges, usually with highly stratified societies.

## Powers and abilities

**Extreme longevity**: All Elf sub-races can live extremely long lives, with the exact time depending between species. Some have been known to live more than two thousand years making many of them older than Twi'sari, with one off shoot known to live for over ten thousand years. The exact age of the original Palbion species is not known although some survivors have claimed that they have lived the twenty five million years since their races fall, and their is historical evidence to support this. Weather this is due to their natural longevity or their own technology, Ancient elves are probably the most long lived race in the galaxy baring the creators.

**High birth dates**: While it takes a long time to impregnate any elvish race, requiring multiple 'mating sessions' over ten years. Once impregnated the female often has multiple children allowing for very large sprawling families who can live for centuries. Interestingly the shorter lived the race the high the birth rates.

**Rapid maturity**: While an elf is expected to live almost a good few hundred if not thousand years, all elves show a drastic level of maturity, being believed adults by the time they are only 16. Although culturally many are not fully accepted with positions of responsibility until they are over one-hundred due to cultural stigma.

**Super human metabolism and nervous system**: All elves posses a unusual advanced metabolic rate and nervous system, which when combined together makes most elves super humanly fast and graceful to look at. They can process information much more quickly and has resulted in some sub-races finding other species unusually slow and dull witted. Many also maintain good physical health without requiring exercise as the metabolic rate burns off the bad excess foods easily, processing them into healthier ones.. The only down side to this is the fact that Elves have to eat 'a lot' and on most worlds it is the main limiting factor to their population size as an elf can go through eight-thousand calories in a single day, making starvation the second highest cause of death after emotional trauma. It is often said that the most horrifying thing a person can witness any elvish race preform is to attend one of their dinner parties.

**Various species planetary specific abilities**: Due to the isolation imposed on many of the race since their fall many of the sub-races have shown peculiar quirks in what abilities they can develop. Most are typically adapted from their species over adapted nervous systems

**Passive telepathy**: A little known fact is most Elvish races are passive telepathic, although very few have shown the ability to control this, including the Palbion's. The passive telepathy does not allow them to read minds but does make elves appear more attractive to everyone around them. As such elves are seen as unusually charismatic and even beautiful.

**Extremely flexible**: All elves show extreme flexibility due to how their muscles are very elasticised and how their bodies contain a substance that is very similar to cartilage but composes 25% more of their skeletons than a humans.

**Weaker than average**: However regardless of sub-species, even among those who live on high gravity worlds, Elves are as a general rule a lot weaker physically than most species not possessing much in the way of muscle mass. There biology mostly rely on thinner wiery muscles that coil like elastic and springs to give them a high degree of flexibility. However thin elasticity makes it very hard for them to strain their muscles making it even harder to develop muscle mass. As a result the race relies a lot on exo-skeletons, like SIG suits, or A.I laborers, to perform manual labor.

**Extreme vulnerability to damage and accelerated healing**: All elves show a peculiar immune system and form of healing. When cut bruised or receiving any form of damage their bodies do not immediately begin to heal, but actually exacerbate the damage or infection and strain it to maximum amount it can within an area. Here the immune system than adapts and selectively analyses the damage before understanding the exact nature of the damage and how best to respond to it. Meaning when it finally finds a way to fix the issue it only takes the elf a day to recover. As a result while each time an elf gets sick could be a death experience once they have cured the disease it is near impossible for them to catch it a second time.

**Extreme venerability to Xenecromorph infection**: Sadly their is once infection which all Elves have a near zero tolerance towards. The Xenecromporph infection breeds to fast for their bodies to deal with, and since the way they naturally deal with diseases is to selectively breed it within their bodies to develop anti-bodies, their immune systems actually help to encourage the spread of the infections making infections and corruption all the more easier for elves. As a result it was the Xenecromorph infection that laid low their empire millions of years ago.

## Known Offshoots

* **Palbion**
* **Neptonians**
* **Zeigrans**

## Navigation

Alpha Prime Terrans \* Tetramons \* Twi'sari \* Petronians \* Kinetticans \* Cerebralceans \* Ctarlplexians \* CyberSapiens \* Zamaranians \* Galilonians \* Pyrosapiens
**Elves**