Creature:Snapdragon

The Snapdragons are one of the galaxy's tragic stories, completely thanks to the Ciitarkians who made them what they are today as one of their innumerable insane experiments.

Before Ciitarkian intervention, Snapdragons were one of the most benevolent races in the galaxy, and despite their ferocious appearance, they were awarded many times by the galactic community as a whole for their incredibly "humanitarian" work. Had it not been for the Ciitarkians, they likely would have single-handedly attempted to save the Mohm from Crux occupation; whether they would have succeeded or not will now never be known.

The Ciitarkians decided that it was important to study the effects of the complete destruction of one's homeworld had on an extremely selfless species; to this effect, the Still Alive was sent in and first discharged its hyperspace radiation within the atmosphere of the only world the Snapdragons inhabited - their homeworld, Vexillo. This alone was a disaster, but it was known that this alone would not destroy the planet itself; as such, the Still Alive then re-entered hyperspace while still in orbit round the planet, causing a mass-stripping of the atmosphere. The drive was only left on for a second before being turned off again, and the Still Alive slowly made its way back to Vexillo over the course of the next week. Arriving back there, they discovered that while most Snapdragons and other local life had expired in the cataclysm, some still hung on to life. Knowing their mission was to make sure this wasn't to occur, the Still Alive fired a confiscated Orb supernova bomb into Vexillo's sun and re-entered hyperspace as the ensuing supernova eradicated the world.

The Snapdragons found off-world at the time were traumatized upon hearing about this tragedy. Initially they simply mourned heavily for their brethren and home system, but upon discovering that it was all just another wild Ciitarkian experiment, most Snapdragons went off the deep end. Deciding that they would do anything in their power to make certain that they were not able to be killed off so easily again, they began to vexilliform worlds utilizing genesis devices. While they initially started with uninhabited worlds, their obsession with making it impossible to wipe them all out overrode their former loving and nurturing behavior, leading them to finally begin taking over inhabited worlds, as well. This first started with worlds without sapient races, but as time went on even sapient worlds were taken.

The concept of creating new colonies for their own people at whatever cost rules the average Snapdragon mind now. However, should even one Ciitarkian be seen by Snapdragons, they will go completely out of their way to kill it. While they travel from world to world in order, progressing in a predictable pattern throughout the galaxy, if they know of a Ciitarkian colony world and it is within their range but beyond another planetary system, they will ignore the other system to immediately overtake the Ciitarkian colony. There are no exceptions to this rule; Snapdragons will always kill or otherwise make suffer Ciitarkians if they get the opportunity to do so. To this affect, the Still Alive's crew are considered the greatest war criminals in Snapdragon history and they are actively sought out by the ever-looming presence of the once-friendly people.

One of their best known ships is the Black Indigo, a vexilliforming vessel captained by the ruthless Admiral Nuttall. It alone has vexilliformed well over a thousand worlds, leaving a great many species homeless or worse, entirely extinct.

List of known vessels
''The Snapdragons use a single main vessel - the vexilliformer - ever since their conversion into vile monstrosities. This ship serves as the destroyers, flagships and capitol ships of their bustling empire, while smaller vessels known as distractors serve as the main attack fleets in the air around planets and to protect the vexilliformers during space flight. Their land and sea vessels are deployed on worlds and are miniature vexilliformation tools as well - these are known as the cloud belcher and the liquid conversion skiff, respectively.''

Named Vexilliformers

 * Black Indigo
 * Ghost Flower
 * Sailflower
 * Weasel's Snout
 * Yellow Twining

Trivia

 * The name "Snapdragon" is a play on a a flower genus of the same name, which is Somarinoa's favorite flower type.  The name's play is seen in the creature's dragon-like appearance and mouth-like tail (inspired by the idea that a snapdragon flower will snap shut on your nose if you smell it, as it used to on Somarinoa when he was a child).  The name is also a play on the term "snapping", where someone goes off the deep end.
 * Snapdragons are not currently available on Sporepedia, as the files are on a computer that access has not yet been garnered again for. As soon as access to the files becomes available, the species will be uploaded to Sporepedia.