Tiaunt

Appearance

Art by Trunch (commissioned by Warringer)

Generally it is to say that the Tiaunt are resembling dragons of western mythology, with three notable differences.

1. The Tiaunt are an octapodal species possessing eight limbs instead of six as mythological western dragons. While they do have four legs and two wings, they also have a pair of smaller and more fragile arms between their wing shoulders and the first leg pair shoulders, each with seven fingered hands that are capable of very good fine manipulation.
2. While they possess wings, these wings are obviously not meant to be used to fly. They are too small to carry the weight of a fully grown Tiaunt, are far too fragile and the wing membrane is heavily intervened.
3. The Tiaunt have eight eyes. Two big eyes, normally closed, above each other in the center of the face and six smaller eyes surrounding them.

Generally a Tiaunt reach a shoulder (front legs) height of 180 cm, a length (from chest to tail tip) of 600 cm and a wingspan of 1000 cm, with a weight of around 850 kg.

Their bodies are covered by something named Itina, an organic structure between hair and feather. This fur of Itina is generally of brown and green colours in various variations and patterns.

The Tiaunt do not have any visible means of separating the three genders outside of their mating times twice an Earth year.

Biology

The Tiaunt are a non human life form based on four nucleic acids, much like Earth life, but with two nucleic acids that vary from Earth life. Their cells also make use of larger amounts of cobalt and copper in their structure.

The average life expectancy of a Tiaunt is 135 standard years.

The Tiaunt are, like humans omnivores, but with a largely carnivorous diet.

Brain and Optical processing

The brain of the Tiaunt is split in two parts. The main part, with a size of twice a human head, is located inside their chests, and the center of their consciousness and motoric centers. This chest brain is connected to the second half inside their heads with a thick spine that makes heavy use of copper based neurons.

While this head is the size of a horse head and the brain the size of a human brain, its sorely developed to process the optical information from the six smaller eyes. This image processing allows the Tiaunt to ‘see’ multiple images/scenes at once in 3D, or a single image/scene with unparalleled sharpness using the six eyes in an interferometric setup.

Bio lasers

Located inside the Tiaunt skull are a pair of biological chemical lasers, nestled directly inside the head brain and connected by large vein like structures to a pair of glands responsible for supplying the bio lasers with ‘fuel’.

The two large eyes inside the Tiaunt head are the apertures of the lasers. Evolutionary these lasers were used to hunt prey and actually measure distances. Today they are used in all sorts of ways, including welding and as weapons, however their use is exhausting for the Tiaunt. Temperature management

Tied into their bio lasers and their placing inside the head brain, temperature management is important for the Tiaunt. For this they evolved their upper limb pair into their wings, actually a pair of large heat radiators, mainly used to shed the waste heat of their lasers, but also to deal with their normal temperature management. Specially for this way of dealing with body temperature, they evolved a second circulatory system, with two redundant hearts, through it is also used by their immune system and as secondary nutrition transport system.

Should a Tiaunt be injured in the wing area, the white ‘blood’ transported through them instantly clots, preventing the loss of this vital body fluid.

Procreation

The Tiaunt are a species with three genders, male, female and neuter, where the neuters are responsible for facilitating sexual intercourse between males and females through the secretions of pheromones and neuro-transmitters. While they are not an active participant in sexual intercourse, they have to be present for a successful impregnation.

Tiaunt do not have an estrus cycle, much like humans, so recreational sex is possible between the Tiaunt males and females, but apparently sex 'isn't fun', when there is no neuter around. Even if there is no estrus cycle, females can only become pregnant every twelve years, allowing the young to be raised into late adolescence.

Tiaunt are life bearing and females have a pregnancy period of thirteen months, always bearing a 'litter' of three young, one male, one female and one neuter.

Early Life Stages

Biologically, Tiaunt are 'monogamous', meaning that three partners of the different sexes remain together for a long time, mostly to raise their young towards late adolescence, at age 15.

All three adults are responsible for raising the young, taking turns.

Generally, the developmental stages of the young Tiaunt follows similar lines to the development of humans or Ormiold.

Society/Sociology

The base unit of the Tiaunt are families with three adult members, three adolescent young and in most cases three young adults.

Larger social units are based around extended families or 'Aceru', which can be translated to Clan, which can be as large as three thousand members. During prehistoric periods as well as the post-apocalyptic period of Tiaunt history, the Aceru formed the base for small towns, which eventually coalesced into larger societies.

Historical Context

The Tiaunt are a species that had developed high technology not once, but twice.

They could have developed into a space fearing FTL capable species about 3000 years ago, but the arrival of an Ormiold refugee fleet in orbit over their world triggered a global thermonuclear war between the four major world powers, as they attempted to prevent their rivals from getting the technological advanced the Ormiold presented. This threw the world into a post apocalyptic stage they needed three thousand years to climb back out of, not helped by the climatologic problems by the first rapid industrialisation and the release of massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere of Jerat, in combination with the aftermath of the global thermonuclear war.

The first industrialisation had also mostly depleted easily available stores of fossil fuel and ores of iron, copper and other metals necessary for industrialisation. For a time frame of about a thousand years there was also a general anti-intellectual stance within the broader population that lead the the loss of massive amount of knowledge, as the war was blamed on both the knowledge as well as the Ineryn.

The second time around, industrialisation was pursued slower, and with more of a focus on sustainability, rather then the previous rapid growth and massive consumerism.

Technology Level

First contact with the Tiaunt, and the Ineryn, happened in 2034 through SETI and interstellar radio traffic. At the time, the Tiaunt were slightly more advanced then humanity, and had already settled several asteroids and moons, allowing them to advance faster in their technological development then before.

By 2189, the Tiaunt retained a slight technological edge over humanity, which was closed through a technological exchange between Sol and Beta Hydri.

Unique Technologies

Thanks to their natural optical and laser capabilities, the Tiaunt have a better understanding of optical and laser systems, having allowed them to advance in these areas of technology faster then any other known species, retaining an edge in these fields.

This allowed them to develop small and capable full colour, high resolution holographic display systems, as well as high powered lasers and optics for use as weapons, as well as in industrial settings.

Government

Much like any of the other alien species, and humanity, the Tiaunt have developed and used many of the same governmental types as everyone else.

However, in the wake of their post-apocalyptic stage and their technological redevelopment, they have restrained from full late stage capitalistic government models, showing a preference for representative democratic systems even within governments that have an aristocracy or monarchy.

Religion

Most religion of the Tiaunt tends towards pantheistic religion, through there is one large outlier within the Empire of Jerat, with its worship of the 'God Emperor of Jerat', who is, strangely enough,. seen as a Buddha like figure at the head of a Buddhist like religion/ethical framework, who keeps reincarnating to lead their people.