Creature:Cephalodian

The Cephalodians are an unusual but extremely intelligent species. More like molluscs than anything else, these creatures have strange biology. They are native to the planet Seladiscas, but have formed a small but peaceful empire, called the Cephalodian Imperium.

Physical features
Their biology is very strange, they have eight joints, which break of into two legs and two arms. They change colour when they feel threatend, either yellow or red, but most of the time, they have greenish-grey coloured flesh. They are similar to the molluscs of Earth, but instead, these have evolved onto land (although they often enjoy a semi-aquatic lifestyle, and can breath underwater). Cephalodians are crabron-based, making them similar via biological functions to those under the Kingdom Animalia. Cephalodians can also change the colour of their stripes in the fashion of a chameleon, by changing pigments in their skin in response to different emotions. Pink and purple, usually mean a Cephalodian is angry, however, due to their temperament, it is very rarely the case when one will come across pink and purple striped Cephalodians.

Symbiotic Evolution - why life is so important
The Cephalodian's entire culture, and even some of their technology, is centered around life. However, there are many good reasons why life is so important to the Cephalodians. One of the main reasons is that instead of exploiting other lifeforms and environments in their early history, the Cephalodians somehow was able to coexist with it, but more importantly, other organisms on their homeworld evolved with them, as a strong symbiotic relationship. Whenever Cephalodians have advanced their technology, other organisms supported these advancements and evolved with it. The Cephalodians didn't genetically modify their biotechnology, simply put, the "technology" are simply life forms that intergrated themselves into the Cephalodians inventions (it should be noted though that the Cephalodians do also create non-biological technology). The Cephalodians owe their very existence, culture, technology, the lot, to their biodiverse planet.

It is unknown what has caused this. Some scientists on Seladiscas agree that some sort of catacylsm may have influenced life to evolve into the cooperation niche. Others, believe that they have a special, perhaps even supernatural connection to life on their world, and Cephalodians do have great elemental powers when communicating with the natural world.

Seladiscas is even speculated to be an organism in itself, making the Cephalodians, where life is concerned, very special.

Culture and society
They are usually peaceful to each other, and alien species, but wars are not unheard of. They adhere to the Ecologist archetype, and fiercely ptotect nature. They often guide races who are less kind to the enviroment, or even defend the planet's biosphere's from lesser caring species. They have recently met the Grox, and have immediate opposition to them. They have even heard stories of the Xhodocto, but the very concept of destroying life makes them shiver, and some are even skeptical (they do not the concept of harming ecologies).

Biologically, they are omnivores, but now they stick to extreme veganism.

Symbiosis and Cosmospawn
Most Cephalodians have religions very similar paganism, shamanism and buddhism. Some are athiest. However, they have a very good knowledge of sciences, as their religion doesn't really conflict with sciences in too many ways, in fact they are more philosphical and mathematical, than related to gods or myphology. Their spirituality is logical, as it has many connections with nature.

Importance of life
The Cephalodians have always been on a quest for the meaning of life, and its importance to the cosmos. The Cephalodian's biophysics is extremely deep, however, the Cephalodians also believe in things very similar to the Biocentric Universe and the Participatory Anthropic Principle. Actually scientific and philosophical theories, they argue that by the act of observation brings things into reality, and that life came first. Physical information is digital, random and exists in quantum chaos, until it is observed and brought to full reality. While it is true that observation is important in quantum systems, it is unknown whether the universe is biocentric or not, a quest the Cephalodians are obsessed in finding.

Living worlds
The Cephalodians also believe in something along likes of Gaia theory, that planets support an equilbrium for life, and if disruption to a system in the planet's climate occurs, then the planet finds a balance. The Cephalodians have combined this with the Biocentric universe, in that planets, also organisms, help support the equilibiums for life, so life can go on and observe the universe, decohering its quantum state and springing it into existence. "God", to the Cephalodians is the combined system of life and Gaia worlds, all these conscious entities working together as a collective to bring physical information (matter and energy) into existence. Recently, the Cephalodians have discovered the existence of "Truly alien" life, like star-life, meaning that as long as any kind of world has life on it, it exists as a duel system, with possibly even the universe living as well. This has led to the discovery of hyper-intelligent AI's (that use planets and stars as nodes), to be mistaken for gods.

Cycle of life and cosmospawn
The Cephalodians are horrified by the concepts of the Xhodocto, and the Cephalodians believe Hell to be universes, where all life has been extinguished, with the only observers to shape existence left beings the Xhodocto and the demons of Inferno. Because of this, the Xhodocto shape these universes as they seem fit to them, turning these universes into hell.

The Cephalodians believe that Cosmospawn life began at the very moment of the Big Bang, to observe its existence. But they also believe that life is responsible for the evolution of the universe. It is known, that life can lower entropy, bring order to disorder, which is otherwise impossible in the universe. One day, the universe will become a high entropic universe, and all energy would be unusable, creating a Big Freeze. But Cephalodians, believe that it is their purpose to find a powerful lifeform, that can lower entropy on a galactic scale, and that at the end of time, is there to observe the universe, projecting the past and saving history, for without an observer at the end of time, all history of the universe would collapse. This lifeform must then navigate to a new universe and observe that one.

Biological immortality
Yet another theory, based from science and its philosophical consequences, is biological immortality. When an organism dies, as long as it is not in an environment unsuitable of detritivores, the organism will decompose. However, the creatures DNA (or alternative biochemistry version) could still last for thousands of years. As the creatures material body rots, its genetic information, its genes and perhaps even memories can survive for periods of time. The bacteria and other orgnanisms feeding on the body, are capable of absorbing these strands of DNA, which is continued to be passed on through countless other lifeforms, from viruses to plants and that experiences of past lives, are simply the memories of previous people, that has been absorbed into that individual. So when a Cephalodian dies, the Cephalodians will ensure that he or she is able to decompose quickly, to save as much information as possible, so there is enough of that creatures mind to spread and walk to the next plane of existence, which lies among the natural environment.

Science and technology


The Cephalopdians technology is quite advanced. But the technology is as green as possible, they have great ecocities, with agriculture in large arcologies whithin cities.

They often seed planets with life, and have huge eden ships, which are large space habitats. Some of their greatest inventions are biotechnology, such as the Cephaloships, which are actually living starships.

Cephaloships

These are large ships, that are over 1,124 meters in length (although it can depend on which ship). No ship is quite the same, and are composed of tough, exoskeletons. These ships (including weapons and armour) have the ability to "learn".

Eden ships

Not all Cephalodian technology is living, but these ships travel the stars, "seeding" planets with life, but also have duties managing the Imperium.

Quotes from other Empires
"Cool!"

- High Priest Pepis

"There are very few civilisations that understand my Empire's purpose in existence. The Cephalodian Imperium is one of these."

- Emperor Tokzhalat of the Tokzhalan Empire

"Not sure if I would like to sit inside something organic when flying between starsystems, but who am I to judge? Everyone have their little funny way to travel."

- Diplomat Gibek of the Gablinus-Avis Empire

"Their technology and their biological advancements interest me... I will see how they can be of use to me... after I've crushed them."

- Kralgon Emperor

"Perhaps I can, "borrow", a few of their ships... and maybe they could lend me a couple of their species..."

- Falrik Zaarkhun