Aktevans

## Physical Description

Aktevan men are typically between 5'8" and 7'2", weighing about 178 lb to over 250 lb, with an overal muscular physique, and Aktevan women are typically between 5'6" and 6'4" and are fit. Sexual selection pressures have selected for more muscular men on average, and for curvier women with more permanent endowment than ancient Aktevans. All Aktevans have prehensile tails that are used like a third hand to operate machines if their hands are occupied. Aktevans have a stronger grip on average due to having evolved from a tree-dwelling species, and their feet, while resembling human feet, have slightly longer toes, with a three-bone pinky toe and the regular ability to grab and grasp with them, useful for climbing trees.

The Aktevan race is quite diverse in coloration. On average, the race has a lilac (light purple) skin color with purple (#800080) hair and eyes. This is by far the most common coloration, but Aktevans are often found liking the other colorations more than this average, since it's so common. Skin tones can be found in various shades of purple, pink, blue, and green. Purple is however the dominant gene for Aktevan skin tones. Eyes can vary in color from red, green, blue, purple, and gray. When an Aktevan dies, their eyes turn brown within minutes of death, and turn black within a day or so, resulting in a widespread cultural stigma to brown eyes, leading to a lot of misunderstandings with brown or black-eyed humans, whom the Aktevans first thought were zombies or possessed by the dead. Hair color is often a deep purple, though blue and pink shades can be found, with blonde a rare possibility as well.

Aktevans are territorial and don't often venture outside of their clans and tribes, which prevented many from venturing too far into space. Their species finally joined Starfleet in 2196, one of them being on the USS Enterprise in the 2260s.

Family groups are often either monogomous or one-male-multifemale. Single females with children are very rare on Akteva. The Aktevan family grouping of polygyny is found in Earth gorillas, howler monkeys, and other primates. Men are in charge of the family group but there is typically one female in charge of the women of the family, and approves of additional females being added to the family.

Aktevans are omnivores, and have canine teeth (fangs) that are slightly longer than in humans, and 32 teeth in their jaws (top and bottom). Their diet consists of fruits, vegetables, leaves, and meats of game animals. Hunting is widely respected in their society, and game meat is more prized than farmed meat, though farmed meat is common in larger settlements. They typically eat their meat from rare to medium, with well done meat tasting burnt to the Aktevan tongue.

## Culture

Aktevans tend to be a very honest species, without a filter on thoughts going through their heads. This isn't malicious in intent, but is often phrased in nicer terms. The species has a tendency to be quite aware of their surroundings, a legacy of being a prey species for larger animals on their home planet. They tend to come off as naive or childlike (like Trance Gemini from Andromeda, season 1), though this is not truly the case. They are often quite intuitive and both men and women have strong 3D visualization centers, they just tend to vocalize things in a different way than humans, especially when things surprise them or are curious to them.

Male Aktevans have male friends but tend to have more female friends. Men are found hunting together, and splitting the share, the more alpha amongst the group getting a little more than others and first share. Women show similar behaviors, and there appears to be a tendency of Aktevan women to 'collect' other women whom they believe would be good mates for their own mate.

While within their homes, Aktevans don't tend to wear much clothing and are in frequent physical contact, a leftover from earlier species' grooming behavior.

The Aktevan people tend to live in trees and their mythologies often feature forest/desert/ocean motifs. Treehouses and tree house complexes are common, as there are many tall and robust trees that can hold large families. Even in larger cities, tree-like homes are found, and roads often radiate out from a central building.

Aktevans are very good at navigation, propulsion, mining, construction, design, and computers, though they have a strong cultural aversion to AI systems, as their mythologies record two worldwide civilization collapses due to talking and thinking machines.

## Calendar

The planet has a 390-day year divided into nearly 26-hour days, and 13 months of 30 days each. The constellations process every 26000 years, and there are megalithic Aktevan structures indicating 12 prior cataclysmic civilization-ending events, which figure strongly in their mythologies of a repeating cycle of collapse and rebirth.

## Technology

Wood-burning for heat has long been common, then coal-burning. Nuclear power was once used on the planet, but the Aktevans tend towards solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, and some wind in northern and southern locations.

Silicon-based computers began to be developed around the 1820s, though there is evidence for prior development of computers in the archaeological record.

## Language

Aktevans have over 2900 languages on their planet, with a variety of writing systems, and they are typically written in a runic-like alphabet or syllabic-alphabet, with a cursive form also available. They have between 32 and 64 letters in the various languages. The most widespread language is Aktevan Standard (in English), called 'akte'vAn in its own language (meaning 'our language'), a much simplified language over many of the others.

Aktevan Standard is about as complicated as Proto-Germanic on Earth in grammatic features. It has 3 genders (Masculine, Feminine, Neuter), 3 numbers (1, 2, plural), and 7 cases (nominative, genitive, dative, instrumental, accusative, locative, and ablative). Verbs have past, present, and future tenses; indicative, subjunctive, imperative, optative moods; active, passive, and reflexive forms; progressive, complete, or ongoing aspects. This is a marked simplification from ancient Aktevan, which had 20 cases, 4 numbers, and several more moods. Modern Aktevan Standard has a 32-character alphabet that is quite phonetic with runic and cursive forms.

## Money

The common currency on Akteva is the Kiva, divided into 100 roka. All roka are 90% silver, found in 1, 2, 5; 10, 20, 50 roka, and the 1/2 and 1/4 roka coins are copper. The Kiva are a flexible plastic like the modern Canadian dollars, though they all feature a scannable ink pattern that verifies authenticity and a grid-circuit pattern completed by bill verifier machines. These bills are technically receipts for gold, silver, rhodium, platinum, and palladium held in vaults, but are more commonly transferred than the metal for ease of use. Aktevan history records 3 major world-wide economic and civilization collapses due to fiat and debt-based money, which explains the strong Aktevan avoidance of non-metal-based currencies.

On average, Aktevans earn about R 2100 a year, while homes are about R 12000, and motorized vehicles are about R 6000. There is no wage gap based on gender or skin variation.

## Planet

Akteva IV is the home planet of the Aktevan species. It is a jungle planet, with a higher average temperature than Earth, most often in the mid to high 30's Celsius in Earth temperatures. At mid-latitudes, summer is about 27 C, and winter is about 15 C; you can see snow in the winter at the northernmost points of the continents. The CO2 levels are about 2000 ppm, and Oxygen in the atmosphere is 29%. The temperature is overall warm to hot and either dry, muggy, or humid, depending on where you are on the planet.

There are 13 continents, all of which are smaller than the seven above-ocean Earth continents. There are hundreds of islands and small islands across the planet, but no ice caps.

Animal life is abundant on Akteva, and is a bit more extreme than on Earth. Megafauna is abundant on every continent, including felid, canid, equine, and other kinds of animals. There are some flying reptiles that resemble depictions of Earth dragons, though they do not breath fire. These dragons vary from scaly to armored in appearance, with several major species and subspecies. Sea life is also abundant, with coelacanth-like armored fish, Cambrian-like organisms, and various Mesozoic-resembling animals. The bird equivalents on Akteva resemble archeopteryx - teeth and reptile-like head, clawed wings, and long feathered tails, except for the gorasha, which resemble mihirungs, which are one of several horse-equivalents (transportation and work animal) used on Akteva.

Aktevans are the only species left in their evolutionary branch, an omnivorous tree-dwelling primate that once had hair across its body, now only on their heads. There is evidence that before 400,000 years, the genetically modern Aktevan coexisted with 8 other Aktevid species and interbred with them, which is the commonly given explanation for the variation in skin and hair color amongst the population today.

The planet is dominated by jungles at the equators, then forests, savannahs, and eventually boreal forests closer to the poles. There are vast numbers of waterfalls, larger than Earth, along with various large lakes and seas within the continents, mountains, and hundreds of active volcanoes. Earthquakes occur on almost every continent.

Minerals and metals are abundant on the planet, including gold and silver, while platinum, palladium, and rhodium are about twice as common as on Earth.