Creature:Malkweess

The Malkweess are creatures of adaptation, opportunity, and if needed, war.

Spore stage
As any creature at this stage, they were bewildered by the world around them, by the good, bad, killers and eatables, and, fortunately or unfortunately, learned from a small race age to wage "war" for food and survival. They soon discovered that being mere herbivores would not be enough, and developed the ability to eat all manner of creatures. For a time, they developed a poisonous trail, but soon found it quite unnecessary, and, frankly, useless, so they discarded it way before becoming creatures. As they grew and evolved, they developed, and later surrendered, weapons of practicality like lodged spikes or tearing mouths.

Creature stage
On the creature stage, they walked out of the primordial waters on legs given by the Gods, legend says, and explored their island (as they were conscripted by the leviathans all around the primordial ocean they arrived from). They have met species, they have befriended some and killed others in their roaming, they have migrated, and they have evolved. Not much was to say about this period, as the wonders ceased in their primordial blood: they had learned these lessons from the spore stage.

Tribal stage
Eventually, the founded a tribe and encountered neighbors. Most were rivalistic and attacked first. Since the first destroyed tribe, they felt the blood of their rivals and did not give up until all their other rival tribes were eliminated from their native lands.

There are legends of spiritual beings, or the Gods themselves, that reversed time on a few occasions, and these voices still echo and are heard through the generations, and listened by most of the population. They say of coming and passed wars, of success over all the tribes, then all the sub-empires but one, "the red allies", though many know they had been exterminated and integrated into the Malkweess Empire long ago. Then, some say the Gods themselves, some say a demon of "unsaved" wind back time and sent them back to the tribe age. There, they were just before wiping out the last two hostile tribes, but alas, as many times as they tried, a creature was sent by the demon to protect the last village of 12, a creature of a legendary 1000 health when they barely had over 100, that would destroy them each time they tried to destroy this city of which only 6 remained. And yet it seemed the Gods were on their side and trying to reverse the demon's interference, as they wound back time each time until the tribe became wise and decided to wait. And the wait was good, as this allowed them to fill their forces, destroy one of the tribes, fill their forces again, gather fish and wait. And the wait was good, as it brough four attackers of the last tribe that only had 6 of 12, and now there were only 2 left in that village. And this time, instead of attacking the creature head-on, they went to " the cyan foes' " village's remains, and outflanked their enemies. Amazingly, the demon's beast still protected the other side of the village, and did not listen to its (supposed) protectee's screams of anguish and loss. And so, the "purple foes" were destroyed and the island was once again theirs. The fate of the beast is unknown, but it is believed it still lives somewhere on their lands, maybe even on their primordial island. But the Malkweess do not hate it, for it was not its fault it was ensnared or sent by the demon to protect their rival tribe, but the fault of the demons. Indeed, they are considering ways to either find it again or genetically engineer a giant creature like that, so they be the Gods and their enemies be attacked by the protectors of the Malkweess. Some think this is heresy and not learning from the past, but the genetic project is progressing magnificently. The technology is already perfected, all they need now is to dig deep into Captain Malachi's pockets...

World Domination!
With the hindsight of their previous life that was not lived, yet with the guidance of the Gods that have witnessed it nonetheless, the Malkweess took all the spice geysers on their land, conquered all the city-states that popped up, all but one, the "yellow allies". The reds, the browns, and the others, were conquered by either side, and at the end, the yellowish-browns and the yellows ended in a stalemate. The core of what is now that Malkweess Empire did not want to attack such a giant, but did not know how to continue, so they just waited until the uneasy peace between the two planetary Empires became less uneasy, and eventually the species merged into one to explore and, if need be it, conquer or save the Universe, as they had done to their own planet.

Space age
The Space Age would depend on one man in particular, the contradictory but very useful Captain Malachi. Some even claim he is the only one to make first contact with ALL of the species of the Universe in the name of the Malkweess Empire. This may be an exaggeration, but as absurd as it sounds, this may be the truth. The Malkweess Empire is not distrustful of strange beings, and does not refuse alliances or trade routs - nay, it encourages them - but they do keep their internal affairs to themselves. Indeed, it is sometimes stated that they mock their own Captain (the highest, and probably only) rank in their history, by claiming "Unidentified UFOs are attacking their homeworld" whenever any ships, whatever their intentions, come too close to their system. This may have backfired, as some of these messages irked the Captain, who refused (or was unable and didn't really hurry back) to return to his supposed besieged world. On one occasion however, he only found 3 city-states left of the marvels of 7 uber-cities, and after another, only one. Since then, the good Captain has felt some remorse on his callous actions (though this would be excused, since he was busy doing odd jobs for odd species and forging alliances even at the price of personal profit)

Philosophy
Although they do not regret their warpath when necessary (which has helped them a lot in the coming fight with The Grox), they most often think back to the tribal age, and the lessons learned in the Civilisation age about the possibility of making peace and maybe deciding on another way of living.

Their wise men are already thinking of finding ways of adopting other races' philosophies, and they are assured by their allies that it is possible. Only time will tell if they change their mind, although there are rumors of rewards for this extreme change towards their race. Time will tell of their decisions...

Another thing that has come to bother them once they gained galactic sentience was the fact that most of their evolution was predisposed by other creatures' DNA and cells, and that they (and many other creatures) practically "stole" their way up the evolutionary cell. Although this combination has made them players on the galactic stage, they are still bothered by their own form, but instead of trying to change it gradually, they are waiting for that one unique moment when they will completely change in ways no other species could expect. Some say this is the singularity, others that will only be a minor change. Once again, time will tell and they have a lot of time now.

They like to think they're not alone, they like to think a force is guiding them (though lately, the wise ones claim only Captain Malachi is now guided by the whims of the Gods), but do not believe in the religion of spode like many cultures of the Galaxy or, more precisely, they believe, but think that the God guiding your race is better than the God that made everything and left it in others' hands.

Although the distrust between the Malkweess and the religious races may appear from those in the galaxy as the inherent warrior instinct of the Malkweess influencing them greatly, the truth is the zealotry of those they encountered. As such, the prominent Captain Malachi is reported to have walked away fast from any religious/spode worshipers he finds, quoting "unreliable uneconomic demanding bastards", and has personally, with his ship, as well as appealing to his allies, destroyed several colonies of spode worshipers, although this was always in a time of war between those races.

In a sense, it may be said the Malkweess are very spiritual, despite the path of life has forced them to choose, and they are not blind to the spiritual nature of the Universe, only see it through, some would say, an unique perspective.

In recent times, a sect has risen, the sect of the "Multiverse theory". This sect is fringe at most, and some of its dogmas are scary, albeit the race itself (and the sect, it claims) does not follow through this disMalkweess-neizing (so to say) belief to a callous conclusion. The theory states there is more than one Universe, and that in each Universe, only a sentient species has evolved, surrounded by automatons. The conclusion is that the other races of the Galaxy, maybe even the Universe, are automatons, caricatures of sentient, Gods-guided beings of other Universes. This theory is starting to catch on, especially as a result to the reports of Captain Malachi of identical messages received from species on any arm of the Galaxy he visits. Indeed, only the horrifying Grox are an exception to this. This may, may be explained for the spode worshipers, but what of the others? What of scientists in different corners of the Galaxy saying the same line, reaction to the Captain's line identical to the others? The followers of the sect are also worried on how they will be presented to the next Universe that will appear - if they are militaristic in name, will they be tormentors of new species in new Universes? If they become spode worshipers, or just change ideals, will this reverberate through the thin membrane of the Multiverse? These are questions that plague the scholars of the sect, and most recently, have entered almost worlds-wide debate.

And for the unbelievers, the worst questions arise, one that even the sect claims not to have pondered, or wish to not ponder. If the sect rises, will the rest of the Galaxy's sentient beings be treated as automaton and manipulated as such, with no regards for the sentience, for their species? Will this lead to the destruction of the Malkweess completely, as the Galaxy now know them, or will they bring them to Galactic control and glory as the "only truly sentient being in the Galaxy"? And if they are wrong, how many will die for this? And if they are wrong, will the Gods still help them in this endeavor, or perpetuate them in other Universes?

Truly, it is ironic that Captain Malachi's should be their shadowed champion, proving more of their theories with every arrival on a world, propagating their belief without him knowing. Indeed, Captain Malachi's action set him straight on the sect's views without him realizing in his usual callous manner, and even moving in practice on ways the sect admits it would have taken it years to figure out for themselves, or more likely, they would have arrived on a different path altogether.

But more about that on Captain Malachi...

Aspect
They started as yellow-brown blobs as nature made them and developed from there. Although they had the chance to change until the tribal age, they decided they looked ok as it was. Color, apparently, was not an issue on their home world.