Creature:Arqorillan

Arqorillans are a species originating from Arqorill, a planet in the Imi-Khauat sector of the. Most Arqorillans are part of clans, the largest thirteen of which form the Clanspaces of the, although many can be found as slaves and outlaws throughout the galaxy.

Early History
Arqorillans evolved in the humid equatorial forests of the super-earth Arqorill during an ice age. The decline of many of these forests during an interglacial period set into motion a series of events that led to the Arqorillans developing agriculture around 9,000 BC, and by 2,000 BC several regions containing early city-states became "cradles of civilisation". The end of the 2nd millennium AD saw an industrial revolution, with the first spacefaring vessel taking flight in 1995. Due to Arqorill's high gravity, getting into space was particularly difficult, so the Arqorillans developed a heavy focus on orbital infrastructure starting from the 2110s. By 2180, seven space habitats attached to orbital dockyards and processing plants had been established, and asteroid mining had begun in order to provide them with raw materials.

On the surface, conditions were worsening. Mass deforestation led to a large increase in atmospheric CO2 levels, and a similar decrease in the proportion of oxygen. The ice caps melted, coastal regions were flooded, anoxia cased a mass extinction in the oceans, and most of the land-dwelling arthropod fauna were also wiped out by loss of their habitats and food sources. With many of their most important cities flooded, and the rest being inflicted by drought and famine, the civilisation on Arqorill collapsed, with a series of resource wars helping to finish off any remaining chance of recovery.

Left to fend for themselves, the habitat-dwelling Arqorillans chose to leave their dying homeworld, and constructed large sublight city-ships to begin interstellar colonisation. Bound by their shared struggles during this time, the people of each of the seven habitats formed a close-knit clan, taking their names after the first new planet in whose orbit they chose to settle.

The Thirteen Clans
In spite of the loss of their homeworld, the Arqorillans thrived. In the early 25th century, the secret to faster-than-light travel was discovered by the Qafeveb clan, and this knowledge was soon traded with their neighbours, with whom their relations were all cordial. From the middle of the 25th century (some historians say 2468, when the furthest reaches of Karve came into the possession of warp drives) until around 2590, the Arqorillans experienced a golden age of art, culture, and science. In 2542, Anibopu explorers even returned to Arqorill, whose biosphere's decline was slowing down, and made monitoring habitats out of the remains of the old dockyards.

It was in the late 2580s that seperatist movements began to form on the Schism-facing side of Ahbvak territory. Although claiming full loyalty to their clan, they had chosen to create colonies tens of light years further than the expanding edge of Ahbvak space, and declared their wish to be free of all laws set by the capital. When this wish was not granted, colonists began firing on incoming Ahbvak ships, triggering the Endeavour War that lasted throughout the 2590s. In the end, Ahbvak was forced to give independence to two seperate colony regions, which became the clans Abviukl and Efubiak.

Seventy years later, the religious Buivyds clan found itself subject to a theological dispute, as one group of technoshamans claimed to have experienced relevations as to the nature of, claims that were rejected by the majority of mystics. Although the resulting Duality Schism of 2688 saw much less violence than the Endeavour War, it still led to the seperation of a Clanspace, with the supporters of the technoshamans being forced to leave Buivyds space and founding the Bekjefs clan counterspinwards of Efubiak.

The final creation of new Clanspaces occured on almost bloodless terms in the first decades of the 28th century. Having invented high-speed hyperdrives, Qafeveb began colonising in a spinwards direction at an increasing rate. A flood of colonists from the crowded inner systems raced to explore new worlds, but clan authority was spread thin and, with the Endeavour War still recent history, Qafeveb gave independence to two new clans, Pihfev and Vehweb, spinwards of Abviukl. Shortly afterwards, a wormhole was discovered leading close to the Imi-Khattok sector, and more independent-minded colonists passed through and founded a thirteenth clan, Vapihelb. The colonists' control over the wormhole was contested by Qafeveb, but after a small skirmish in which the Vapihelb ships held too strong a position, they relinquished their claim.

Arqorillan Renaissance
In 2782, the Girdo Resistance were directed through a portal from their doomed universe to the Imi-Khauat sector. There, they began conquering the Arqorillan Clanspaces for a new home. By 2785 they had conquered nearly all of the Clanspaces, and over the next 20 years they terraformed Arqorill back to habitability in order to make it into their new capital, and made a higher-level system of government, the, which with they could exert some degree of control over their new subjects.

Trivia

 * The name "Arqorillan" is a mixture of "Arquillian", a species from Men in Black, and "Corellian", from Star Wars. The creature model is loosely based on the creator's memory of a minor background alien in the sequel to the former film.