Alorean

The Alorean people come from the world known as Phentor IV within the Phentor system.Nobody of the present day knows its location - any trace of it gone.The Aloreans date back to the reign of the Iconians, more than two-hundred thousand years ago. Whether or not they were a young race then or an old race at that point is unclear but conflict between the two races did occur that raged for hundred of years. Obviously the Iconians were victorious in the end but what exactly came of their enemy at the time? In order to preserve their people and prevent their technology from falling into the wrong hands they had to summarily glass the worlds they had colonised. This also destroyed anything worth noting to their legacy and caused themselves to become a myth to the races at that point barring the Iconians.

The Aloreans are isolationists, consequently making them go only as far as three systems away from their homeworld, within the Milkway, placing most of their skirmishes with the Iconians in the latter's territory instead. They are incredibly egotistical with an extreme God complex to inferior species while being incredibly arrogant and cunning towards potentially more powerful races, such as the Iconians.

Biology
Aloreans are humanoid, varying between heights of 5ft 5 to 6ft 5. Their hardened brow and hollowed, sunken red eyes give them a very prominent skull-like appearance. They do not have any distinctive skin colour, being quite similar to the pigment of Humans. However, in conjunction to their hardened brow, is a set of spots of darker colour that goes down the side of their face. They aren't the most intimidating in proportions either. Their natural physique is rather petite in comparison to that of other species, even Humans. But they make it up in tenacity and ferocity though!

Their reproductive organs are also the same, in relation to Humans'. However, it is complicated in how they are used. Theu are not used at all any more - something to come onto later on.

Planet
Phentor IV is located within the Outback, in one of the furthest corners of the Dwarf Galaxy. It is the fourth planet from it's sun - a Red Giant. What vegetation and forests that were present on the homeworld of the Aloreans was replaced by metal; The utter urbanisation of the planet occurred after the Civil War when the majority of the planet was engulfed in flame, but if one were to remove the existing layer, they would find the ruins of the old cities that dotted the planet's surface.

The seasonal changes were once similar to the seasons of Earth, yet slightly more arid during the Summer. This is no longer the case. Phentor IV now consists of an arid Summer for the first half of the year, with little-to-no rain, and a harsh Winter during the second half of the year, consisting of torrential rain, storms and snow blizzards.

Culture
Their culture is built on upon layers of Science. Any form of religious practice that they had done so had been done since their civilisation's technological epiphany (In other words, when they became warp-capable)). Despite this, their one true goal is very reflective to that of the goal of Buddhism: To achieve enlightenment. Except they believe that this can only be done through technology and not reading a book backwards or meditating. Knowing this, one would think they would be one of the most dangerous threats to other advanced species. Truthfully they are not but they do have an impressive military fleet albeit being relatively small. Their goal, backed by their isolationist beliefs, have left them in seclusion far away from the affairs of the younger races and allows them to focus on genetic manipulation, leading to less attention being placed on their military. Somewhere along the way, during their early years of this experimentation, an event occurred which propelled the evolution of the Aloreans further along the line. Naturally they were absolutely thrilled at the fact that their work was finally giving shape to their final goal. At first they were apprehensive, unsure of what this meant; unsure of what exactly has been unlocked through this.

In the end, it was this that made them who they are today.

The experiment had given them a rare psionic ability known as Technopathy - The ability to manipulate technology. This does not mean they're without flaw. They can still be taken by surprise and, as long as there is not any piece of technology around them, then their opponent will have equal, or higher, footing against them. This, though, makes them extremely dangerous to anyone who has cybernetic enhancements, since they will have the ability to manipulate them, and cause serious damage. Of course, with anything, the moment they had something they wanted, they began abusing it, in the end, instead of continuing their research. This indulgence into recreational purposes corrupted them, making them gluttonous and selfish. Inevitably Civil War broke out and led to thousands of years of culture to be smashed to pieces.

After the ash settled on Phentor IV, the Aloreans rebuilt their cities into a single cloud-piercing city known as KannOs'Thul. The Government, once a Republic, became an Oligarchy. This is a hierarchy in which those with the greatest amount of power rule. Naturally, this has now led to a exponential increase in feuds, conspiracies and assassination plots within the populace. In the end, their own success reforged them into something worse than what they were before. In order to create stability, it was decided that the Oligarchy's power be split between five of the most powerful Technomages, the dubbed name for their people since no-one now knows their real name. Still, this decision has not stopped the feuding, plotting and assassinations that happen. But soon they did come to a halt.

As previously mentioned, Aloreans do not reproduce in the conventional way. That is because they believed, with the power they have, that they did not need to die and lose it all and so, subsequently, they began cloning instead. This cloning had become such a large part of their people that it became the only means of reproduction and was simply named 'The Process'. 'The Process' involves the direct transferral of memories from the corpse to the new body. This can be done via a repository device that they connect to the temple of the corpse and transfer the memories. To ensure that illegal processing doesn't happen only few Aloreans are ever trained in the use of the cloning equipment used, and those Aloreans are the ones who created it in the first place! Irony. A law was decreed by The Magistrates, the leaders of the Oligarchy, that any crime committed against another Alorean would subjugate the offender to 'The Passing' - revoking their ability to be cloned after death, ending their immortality in one swift move. With this at hand, offenders of the law quickly ceased their attacks. This, in combination with their genetic manipulation research, has led to their longevity to be increased dramatically, being able to live up to centuries at a time.

The constant cloning led to the eventual celibacy of the Aloreans but it also affected the way in which they named themselves. It was believed that by using the same name in every life-cycle they had would eventually cause insanity through a process similar to that of Alzheimer's disease and, being on a world that was filled to the brim with technology, would cause severe complications (A monumental understatement - the larger the technology, the more power they can draw from it). So upon the transferral of a new body, the person has to take up a new name while their previous first name becomes their last.

Example:

Dre'Kor Namar died and was cloned. He had his memories transferred successfully and now must decide on a new name. Namar is discarded permanently while Dre'Kor becomes his new surname. He picks Takath as his new first name and is now called Takath Dre'Kor. This happens up to a total of thirteen times where the first name they held previously becomes a new sirname and they pick another first name. So if Takath Dre'Kor were to die and be cloned again and he decides upon his new first name to be Kal'pHor, then his new name will be Kal'pHor Takath Dre'Kor.

A draw-back had occurred through this, however. With the consistent cloning, the Aloreans have now rendered themselves infertile, meaning the only route forward for them is through cloning unless they decide to focus their attention on treating their predicament. The reason behind them only renaming themselves a total of thirteen times is that is the point of no return. After the thirteenth clone has died it is dead, save for downloading and storing the deceased's memories. This happens because of DNA dissemination. The Aloreans take DNA samples from the new body and not the original, which would have been more logical to use, and so the DNA sample becomes less and less usable with each new clone. In essence, even with their longevity, they are a dying people - making their quest for enlightenment even more of a focus now. This, in consequence, has led to a few brave Aloreans to leave the Phentor system in order to find answers - an example of one such Alorean is K'Kialla Kolash'Na Karghel'RahK.

Another cultural aspect that nobody would think of is their music. For a race like theirs it would stereotypically be linked to morbid and dry music. It is quite the opposite. They take pride in their music and, as such, much of their music is highly upbeat and energetic.

Conflicts
The Aloreans greatest conflict was against the Iconians, lasting for six-hundred and forty-eight years. As they didn't have an extensive Empire like the Iconians, it made them a lot harder for the great enemy to locate since they couldn't simply follow a trail of planets flying the Alorean banner all the way back to the homeworld. After seventeen strategic losses against the Iconians, The Alorean Oligarchy, in fear of their seclusion and efforts being thwarted, decided to glass their worlds of any trace of their presence and retreat to their home system - something that confused even the Iconians. It was so sudden and so elegantly done that it left no trace of their presence anywhere.

Another war, that occurred before their war with the Iconians, was the Civil War, also known as 'The Dread War', where multiple factions did battle within the cities of old, grounding them to a pulp through the extremities of their Technopathic powers and summarily led to the formation of the Oligarchy.

Vessels
Their military, as previously stated, is powerful technologically but not numerically. Composed of one dreadnought, several warships, double the amount of that for cruisers and enough frigates to fill Earth Space Dock (For a lack of a better comparison) if it was completely hollowed. Their entire goal was to focus on achieving enlightenment, so, of course, it would mean that they would focus on other areas of research and not military, especially as they are isolationists; most of the ships are, in fact, from their war with the Iconians, making them over two-hundred thousand years old.