BY LETTER
Unnamed species: HIE072CZE
Extinct Alien species associated with the Enforcer Objects | |
 Image from Steve Bowers | |
| Although the unnamed species HIE072CZE is extinct, similar non-sophont species still exist on their homeworld Lhagharia | |
According to available evidence, approximately 5.4 million years ago a long-lived carbon/silicon xenosophont civilization spread to several worlds and systems, but was involved in a conflict with autonomous devices which they built themselves. This species has been given the given the Hamiliton Institute of Exopaleontology catalog number HIE072CZE. They are no longer active within the Terragen Sphere, having apparently fled from their home world and colonies following the conflict, but whether they persist elsewhere is not known.
This civilization arose on a hot wet greenhouse world, somewhat similar to To'ul'h Prime but with a somewhat lower temperature and thinner atmosphere. Lhagharia, the deserted homeworld of this species, was discovered in 6990 near Alpha Camelopardalis. Previous to this date many traces of this civilization had already been found closer to Sol, on many different types of world as well as between the stars.
Lhagharia today still has a complex biosphere, with many macroscopic plantlike species adapted to the high surface temperature of this world, but the animal-equivalent species there are all colonial organisms that resemble slime-molds and fungi more than multicellular animals. These creatures, called 'gunks' by the NoCoZo explorers that surveyed this world, come in a large variety of protean forms, and come together in colorful mating structures that release clouds of zygotes into the hot damp winds. All gunk species have inclusions of silicate minerals which they mine from the surface rocks and soils, and have protective integuments of silicone compounds.
The vanished xenosophonts which evolved on Lhagharia appear to have developed sentience through fierce competition for rare minerals, which they used as tiny tools to modify their environment and to decorate their gelatinous bodies. With no central nervous system, the sentient species presumably used the same distributed information processing system which is still used by surviving 'gunk' species on their abandoned homeworld. Fossil remains of this sentient species are generally poorly preserved, and consist mostly of the mineral inclusions in a formless matrix.
The HIE072CZE seem to have developed microtechnology, biotechnology and eventually nanotech before they developed metalwork, and the remains of their spacecraft and habitats have a distinctive appearance, like the half-rotten wood which formed their natural environment back home. Remains of their habitats and craft have been found over a volume spanning several hundred light years, although the stars concerned have been spread out somewhat by five million years of proper motion.
The HIE072CZE empire lasted for three-quarters of a million years, but at length they developed a number of different types of aioid servants, robots of various kinds that like themselves were swarm-like and amorphous. The exact circumstances are not clear, but the aioid slime molds seem to have attacked spacecraft and habitats in many systems, and appear to have commandeered spacecraft to spread between the stars. Eventually the HIE072CZE developed an effective form of defence, an automated interstellar warcraft very similar to the biowars developed by the Terragen civilization many millions of years later. These devices, named Enforcers by later civilizations, could pursue and destroy any infected spacecraft or sterilize almost any habitat. However they seem to have been a danger to uninfected craft and worlds as well, which may explain why the HIE072CZE evacuated their homeworld and colonies, departing for an unknown location.
No record of this conflict is recorded by either the Muuh or the Soft Ones, who retain few historical records of any kind concerning this period. Some historians suggest that that the war between the HIE072CZE and their own aioid creations may have spread into other volumes, causing destruction among other xenosophont races, which may explain the lack of hard data from this era.
Given the effective and indiscriminate nature of the Enforcer drone weapons, it is quite possible that the HIE072CZE did not get very far.
Some commentators blame the Meerlinda Nano-disaster on weapons left behind by the HIE072CZE; if true, this makes their legacy potentially even more dangerous.
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Development Notes
Text by Aaron Hamilton
Initially published on 02 July 2000.
Initially published on 02 July 2000.
