Ravenea

The **Ravenea** are a proud and ancient people native to Ravenealla IV, located in Sector S-24, currently classified by Starfleet as OB-930.

# Biology

## Physiology

The Ravenealla system is a study of contrast. The native inhabitants of Ravenealla IV instead of evolving from animals, as is found in the majority of the universe, evolved from the plant life of the planet, namely the trees.

The Ravenea are bipedal. The cell structure (as seen above) is the typical plant cell that can be found in all plant life. The internal organs of the Ravenea are not differentiated like in animals. The skin is structured like that of a tree (as seen above). The top dermal layer is the outer bark. It then proceeds to the Phloem, Cambium, Xylem and the Heartwood. This means that the Ravenea are strengthened against blunt force attacks, but not against repeated strikes of bladed weapons, fire, or explosions.

The hair contains chlorophyll, providing the majority of the nutrition for the Ravenea. Embedded in their feet are microtubules that act as the root system and can absorb nutrients from the soil. Occasionally, they supplement their diet with grasses, fungi and insects.

Ravenea do not have any distinguishable sexes like species evolved from animals. Each year, Ravenea head to the giant nurseries that can be found in the southern continents and begin the pollination process.

Much like trees found on Sol 3 and elsewhere, the Ravenea start their life as saplings in the giant nurseries that can be found in the southern continent on Ravenealla IV, with a maturation period of six months. As the sapling ages, they are transplanted and placed into a fostering program where they begin to develop their root system.

# History & Culture

"Much like a sapling does not grow overnight, a society needs time to mature and develop" - **Minister Joolannado, Council of Nine**

Present day Ravenea appeared some 200 000 years ago, but their species seem to be dating back to 25 million years ago, according to a few fossil findings across their home planet, Ravenealla IV. While all Ravenea have an ability to impress their entire lifetime memory into Trees of Life, ancient super-organisms that gave rise to Ravenean nurseries, Ravenea themselves have only had civilization memory their society up to last few tens of thousands years (corresponding roughly to 50 000 BC). Further archaeo-botanical studies suggested that Trees of Life, in some form, were sapient organisms up 11-13 million years ago, until the nurseries became fully independent systems. At that point, the Trees of Life became dormant, regular plant-alike beings, even though it is possible for most talented Ravenea to access their memories. These Ravenea would be venerated as Tree Whisperers (sort of druids) and thousands of years later, their descendants would become Adjudicators in Ravenean tricameral legislature. The dormancy of the Trees remains a scientific mystery to this date.

The first modern Ravenea lived in tribal societies, with each worshipping the Tree of Life they descended from. Each tribe counted between 100 and 800 individuals, living in caves, improvised shelters made of stone, wood and mud. Unlike their animal-descended humanoid counterparts, Ravenean culture never collectively experienced a nomadic lifestyle nor they domesticated animals. Suprisingly for a arborianid species, they mastered fire around 8000 BC and developed first stone tools only around 5000 BC. It is believed this slow progress was made due to Ravenea's long life span (1700-1900 years, with record set to 2184 years of age) and lack of necessity for animal hunting, trade between different settlements and their isolation, as Ravenea were self-sufficient for most of their lifetime, both on individual and collective level. The great continental fires around 1200 BC endangered one of the nurseries, prompting a construction of the first defensive walls and irrigation systems in the known history. This is considered to have caused the birth of arcological civil engineering and geometry, even though they were known to keep the track of seasonal movements of stars since roughly a millenium earlier.

By the 18th century AD, Ravenea had been fully utilizing all sorts of technologies and energy sources, from animal plowing on very small farms to wind farms and electricity in larger urban areas. Arcology and biochemistry became two prominent sciences and in 1850s Coeden Doethinebb made a series of discoveries which brought to the development of organic electronics. As with everything, from first (bio)computers to warp engines, it took almost three slow centuries. In mid-2100s, however, shortly upon breaking the warp 3 barrier, Ravenean society was left divided over the question of their species in space exploration. Majority of Raveneans were against leaving their homeworld, due to the xenophobia. A war broke out between pro-warp and anti-warp factions, as they were called at the time. While the war itself did not cause major causalities among post-floral Raveneans, it did sack their civilization due to the destruction of many sapling nurseries across the planet.

Realizing they might be extinct within few pollination cycles, Raveneans agreed upon colonizing one of the three neighbouring worlds, known to have lush forests, and seeking out other civilizations in The Outback. By the 2300s AD, Raveneans came into contact several Outback species, such as the Nua Constructs, Draan and Purgills. The encounter with the latter cosmozoans encouraged Ravenea, master of biochemistry, to synthesize a fluid which allowed to build warp engines which mimicked the Purgills themselves. This lead to development of warp 5 and warp 6 engines.

# Technology

## Environmental Engineering, Biochemical Synthesis and Agriculture

Much of the Ravenea culture is intertwined with nature and the preservation of ecosystems, trees in particular since Ravenea descended from them. This is also reflected in the technology. While the metals have been primary materials for tools in pre-industrial age, it was the organic materials that eventually prevailed. Ever since their Coeden Doethinebb, considered a father of modern science among Ravenea, discovered a photoelectric effect in beta-carotene rich organic disposal, Ravenea gradually switched to organic materials as a solution to many demands and challenges of their growing society. Chemistry and (bio)chemical engineering became primary sciences. Within a century, chemically synthesized materials were solution to almost everything - from pen & paper, clothes and nutrition to more advanced demands such as computer technology.

As a consequence, Ravenea completely skipped the silicon-based stage of technological development, going straight for the organic micro- and nano-electronics. While they are still decades behind the bioneural gelpack technology of the Jenolan Alliace, their prowess in electronics' miniaturization lead them to interesting advances in numerical/theoretical modelling in areas which, if one may excuse the pun, naturally come to these *walking trees* - biochemistry, pharmacy and drug development, agriculture and arcology.

By no means should one think Raveneans are *on par* with Federation's terraforming or Lukari's protomatter technology. They do, however, have means to micro-tailor conditions, by developing genera of known plants that are more suitable to local climate. This micro-tailoring would prove better in situations where large-scale terraforming or ecosytem restoration is unnecessary of too resource consuming. Their technology is no miracle though. As Ravenea themselves admit: *"A fruitful tree can never grow out the solid rock, nor can the wheat flourish in the deepest of water."*

* **Soil reclamator/enricher.** Ravenea have developed a type of soil reclamators/enrichers based on organic micro(nano)-crystallite sheets. In reclamation mode, the sheets can be aligned by external electromagnetic impulses, generated my pulse magnets. A certain volume of soil is then circulated via fluid through the micro-pores which serve as pollutant filters within the sheets, leading to soil purification. The soil enricher mode is slightly more complicated. In the first step, crystallite sheets have to be arranged for the reception and storage of fertilizing agent. In the second step, crystallites have to be rearranged again to optimally release the agent into circulating soil. The enriching process is still not fully automated and it requires a presence of a technician to oversee the transition between the steps, as modifications heavily depend on soil and fertilizer type.
 At first, this technology was of a limited use, as it was tuned to Ravenealla's ecosystem only. The improvements came as Ravenea began adapting this technology for the colonization purposes on the nearby planet, and in the trade with other Outback species.

Being masters of biochemical engineering and synthesis, they also created a theoretical framework and experimental tools for medication/drug development and testing. However, due to the limited contact with other species, their reference database of diseases, infections and drug catalysts is small, leaving little room for variation of existent drugs and antibodies.

Their most massive undertaking thus far, colonization of nearby planet, encouraged the development of large number of arcological tools, products and projects, with the goal of preservation and/improvement of the existing ecosystem. Both on their homeworld and the colony, many settlements are self-sustainable and low-impact on local ecosystems, even without the use of more advanced technologies such food replicators or fusion power units. Most of the settlements are powered by renewable energy sources and fed by local food production.

All these projects and technologies have lead Raveneans' massive agricultural capacity, both in 'en masse' production and tunable quality of nutrition products, ranging from whole foods to specific demands, such as supplements, ration packs, individual plant and protein products for medicine, etc.

## Space Flight Technology and Beyond

On the down side, the aforementioned technologies made Ravenea people highly self-sustainable early after the Dawn of Technology, as they refer to the progress over last four centuries. There was no urgency to leave their home system. No threat which would propel them toward the stars. They had developed their warp drive around 2100 CE, and reached warp 3 in following 50 years. However, it took them next 200 years to reach the Warp 5 breakthrough, in late 2350s. Furthermore, the location of their home system at the outer rim of Outback makes them fairly unnoticed by the rest of the universe.

Until recently, their only main drive to explore the stars was to find species like their own. They have improved their subspace communications enough to allow minimum delay in the communication between Ravenea and Starbase 381.

# References

* 26th Fleet Stellar Cartography - Outback Star Charts, Ravenealla system input
* Shinaon
* The Alliance Intelligence Services Outback Factbook, Ravenea species input
* Request for Support (Urgent)
* Alt Char Application - Ganryuuvi Saamnach

* [1] https://www.pinterest.com/pin/94575660903090515/
* [2] https://greenfuture.io/innovation/green-building-future-cities/