Akari

Sometimes also known as 'Akarian', the Akari are a species from Karos Akai in the Akarosia System. They have been slowly recovering from a bitter nuclear war with themselves over 1000 years ago, while they did develop hyperspace technology, did not often venture beyond their system and much of their hyperspace-capable starships remained docked in orbital stace station Li Kaia. Every year a small team travel to the station make repairs on the ships docked there from micrometeorite damage so that one day in the future they may start exploring space again. This yearly maintenance has become a tradition known as the Daku Ka Li Kaia (Visitation of Li Kaia).

After centuries of recovery their tropical planet has been almost fully restored, but its population are so low many live in small communes, letting nature take its course in old cities and paying more attention to the natural world than technology.

### History

Since the Akari’s planetary war around 1000 years prior to the 31st century, old nations and ways of hyper-consumerism, political corruption and pollution have been forgotten and erased by nature and a new way of thinking came around; a peaceful love of nature and focus on the small and simple actions of local communities such as environmentally friendly ways of farming and manufacturing have changed their societies and developed new forms of beneficial technology from older more dangerous tech.

For centuries the few Akari that were left let nature take it's course, reclaim the ruins of vast cities, many coastal city ruins now flooded by a rise of ocean levels

in 3001 Karos Akai was attacked by members of the Haze for unknown reasons, devastating their orbital stations and landing a ground assault, the Ranger Division was called to their aid and the N'vashi and Blitz aided them in defending Karos Akai from the attacks, that were later attributed to pirate tipoffs as they passed the system, however later investigation found a link between the Void Legion and communication from the planet itself, revealing a traitor to their own world, though the individual or individuals were never found.

With suggestions from the Rangers the Akari admitted that they had been too focused on their world and defending their planet must also come high on their agenda, although they still refused to join the Galactic Confederacy for fear of their world becoming too swamped with traders, visitors and tourists, nevertheless they have recently began hyperspace travel once more with their only operating vessel and established small-scale trade and research with the Covoun and the peace-loving colony world of Yin as of 3002. In 3004 technology research with the Atuka'i was also established.

### Biology

Akari are a omnivorous, bipedal species believed to somehow distantly related to both the Atuka'i and curiously, the Braxan, although in what capacity is unsure, and do also share similarities in technology, and even share a similar name to the Atuka'i but may point to early genetic engineering by the Ga'n using Atuka'i DNA or perhaps even very early colonisation efforts by the Atuka'i to where they manipulated their biology with a local ancestor species, however no record of such civilisations exist in Atuka'i records; the true link between the two species has not yet been properly established and any genetic engineering that did occur clearly happened long ago during hunter-gather eras of the planet, at a time when the Atuka'i too were also pretty primitive.

They can vary greatly between 4 to 6 foot, although the average is around 4.7 foot, particularly tall and muscular individuals have been noted. They possess skin tones varying between purple, blue and green hues with a almost rubbery, white, secondary skin layer over the tops of their arms, heads and head tentacles, known as 'aluka', which the Akari believed once helped their ancestors sense water pressures, but now seem to function as a sign of health and virility, possessing very little actual sensory neurons any more. These aluka and the white layer of skin is often striped with various shades of blue or purple, and similar colour pattern of rubbery skin also crosses across the eyes and around their pointed ears, often dotting off in freckle-like spots upon their cheeks and foreheads.

The eyes of an Akari are usually bright blue or green, and sit within black or dark grey sclera, often Akari are born with very light grey sclera and this darkens with age to totally black by their 40's, with many living way into their 200's.

They are an air-breathing species, despite their obvious aquatic evolution, although genetic alterations may also be behind much of their current biology, can and do swim regularly, while their hands and feet do not seem particularly suited to aquatic life; they have particularly sharp underwater senses and are extremely flexible and agile both in water and on land, but prefer to live on beaches above the surface, as long as they are near a source of water

Akari are hermaphrodites with both male and female systems, however the process of mating actually swaps eggs, with with eachother or only one mate, and the egg is fertilised by 'endosperm' within the other's womb cavity; it is very common for only one partner to choose pregnancy as Akari parents like to pay full attention to the upbringing of only one child at a time; such a system is also why their population remains so low to this day.

Akari children are born with small teeth and are capable of eating solid foods straight away, by the time they are 7 are capable of extremely quick decisions and learn at a remarkable rate.

### Technology

The Akari possess some quite advanced systems left over from their more industrial era, such as antigravity units used in flying sailing craft, and operated space stations for orbital research and monitoring of their planet, and even hyperspacial systems, however with most of their technology focused on recovering and regenerating their world, the majority of Akari stayed onworld and rarely left their starsystem for anything, but have recently began research into plasmatter sails with the Atuka'i who have been using similar forms of propulsion on their vessels for centuries and wish to research more into the two species' genetic links.

While the few starships the Akari produce are usually unarmed, reactive-fabric shielding technology used for their particle sails produced a surprisingly efficient means to spread a forcefield effectively, avoiding tearing and re-purposing kinetic energy of potential impacts.

Most Akari vessels can reach around a H8 hypermark.

### Sociology and Governance

The Akari are a species focused on the small and intricate, slow and methodical study, knowledge and patience, finding many other species too fast-pace, something they seem to share with the Covoun and the colonists of Yin. While not religious as such, being deeply scientifically minded, are also somewhat spiritual about their methods, have established some much older philosophies based on long-forgotten religious ideas on Karos Akai before the rise of the pollutive world that came before their current generation, that eventually fell to greed and war, the survivors took many lessons about life from this and passed it down the centuries.

They are run by a global, but small-scale democratic union known as the Karos Akai World Republic focused around science, environment and nature, while no true cities exist like the old cities that once dominated the planet's skyline, the many island are dotted with small towns and villages that use recycled, advanced technology and communications systems to maintain a global trade supply.

While friendly, the Akari do not often take kindly to many visitors on their world at once, and want absolutely nothing to do with the galaxy’s greater political systems and the wars and issues that come with it.