Creature:Dienko

The Dienko have a very ancient civilization; it is on the verge of its 50 millionth aniversary. Their technology is gazed at in awe by lesser civilizations; this often opens a lucrative trade window for the Dienko. Being evolved from herbivores, they are, however, extremely mistrusting of carnivorous races; early on, they developed a bad habit of exterminating them if First Contact went wrong.

The Dienko's evolution of intelligence is considered a fluke: they only developed it in order to counter the rapidly growing intelligence of native predators, which they rapidly beat back into non-sapience.Their earliest ancestor lived amongst low lying shrubs near the coast; it is considered to be at least partially amphibious. Over the millenia, they adopted a quadruped gate and a large frill, both to scare off predators and woo potential mates. Approximately 80 million standard years ago, the Dienko developed an upright posture, permitting the use of tools and better view of their territory. It is at this point that the Dienko began spreading out of their original home continent, the second smallest of the four that exist on Dienko. The other continents did posses sapient races; the Dienko brutally pushed them back into non-sapience, while allying with their fellow Dienko. As the Dienko spread, they also mutated to new environments; there are some more adapted to aquatic situations, others to cold or heat, still others to desert and mountains. This has led to what some might call subspecies, though they retain enough genetic similarity to cross breed. This was also the cause of the wars that scarred their homeworld for countless generations; the Dienko City-States saw others that were slightly different because of mutations as a hostile, alien threat, and attempted to eradicate one another. It was, however, not uncommon to see different "sub-species" work together, especially if they were located on the same continent. After about ten million years of nearly constant war, the Dineko had developed a world spanning government that tolerated all subspecies. After about five hundred years of this, they began to suffer overpopulation; space travel had already existed, and there were small settlements on their moon and nearby planets, but they were all bubble cities. The Dienko then invested massive resources in moving large portions of their population to these colonies, and also terrforming them; these worlds are now the homesystems primary source of food, with the exception of synthesizers. About thirty million years ago, the first interstellar ramscoops were launched, colonizing several nearby star systems, without discovering alien intelligence, though extrasolar life was discovered. About five hundred years after these ships left, the first prototype FTL ship was luanched; Dienko FTL drives are reverse engineered from an alien wreck discovered in orbit around the homestar's gas giant. The Dienko improved its efficiency, and began mounting them on their ships. Within two centuries, their fledgling empire exploded: the population increased tenfold, and dozens of new colonies were founded. A few short years into the Great Expansion, they encountered the trader empire known as the Actan. The Dienko were initially extremely mistrusting, due to the fact that the Actan, while not hunters (they lived off of fish and some plants) they were still carnivorous. Several skirmishes led to tensions, but trade eventually smoothed them out to the point where the two species are now allies and co-inhabit countless systems. Other carnivorous races were not as lucky. Official Dienko documents record no less than eightteen wars; five of them ended in mass extinctions, and one ended in a stellar collapse, destroying an entire system. The Dienko are far more peaceful now, as the have been for the past five million years. They now offer terraforming services and equipment, as well as equipment and weapons, though not even on par with those that the Dienko use.