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Over ten million years before the present day, there lied a civilization near to the heart of Martial Space. This civilization, whose name, culture, and civilization was lost to time, left behind exactly one thing signifying their existence, their technology. In a scenario far worse than the widely feared "Grey Goo" scenario, their world was overrun by self-replicating information complexes. In other words, they released a new kind of life onto their world, a kind of life that was not too kind to those already living on their world.
Following the utter destruction of ecosystem, a new order took hold, that of machines. Machines that were left behind by the civilization had become the new fauna and their power generation the new flora. In the wake of this civilization's mistake came the origin of a form of life unique in Cosmoria, that of the Ror Units.
Ror Units (sometimes called The Ror or Rorrans) (Ror Unio) are an iron-oxide-based species native to the planet D'Naevium. They are most common in the Greater Martial Consilium. Rather than being made up of trillions of cells, they are made up of trillions of miniature robots, or nano-machines, working as one "organism." This causes scientists to debate over whether Ror Units are machines or a genuine natural species.
History[]
Ror Units first emerged around the time D'Naevium's original inhabitants annihilated themselves. Emerging in frigid northern areas, the Ror Units has an oral history describing the formation of their planet's northern pole, a harsh wasteland of gallium crystals that behave much like snow on more temperate worlds.
Leaving the incredibly lightning-prone northern hemisphere, archeological evidence as well as the oral tradition confirms that the Ror Units first settled what were likely the remains of a large city. From here, the Ror Units began the typical progression as seen in many civilizations, culminating not in an advancement of technology, but in the advancement of philosophy. Embracing the life style of the Paladin, the vast majority of Ror Units lived an ascetic life style in various communes across the planet. This network of communes would create the basis for the modern practice of Alkanism.
Interstellar History[]
By around 47,000 CE, the Ror Units had mastered their craft to the point of interplanetary travel being possible simply using the arts they had cultivated over millions of years. While only a small number of the oldest Ror Units could achieve this, they had managed to establish a galactic presence with a reputation for their warrior-monk lifestyle.
In 48,709, the species would be united under a single grand master, forming the Great Intendancy. This organization centralized their monastic practice, acted as a center of philosophy and logic, and served as the primary means by which the Triumvirate Civilization asserted control over the species. The Triumvirate would regularly contract the Intendancy to handle unruly elements the Ror Units would agree needed correction. Largely independent, they survived the Triumvirate's collapse only to be largely conquered by the Un'oit Collective starting in 85,306 CE. At this point, however, the Ror had spread throughout all of Martial Space, with sects practicing Alkanism largely in peace.
After the destruction of the Un'oit Collective, the Ror created a new order, the Alkan Intendancy in which every being in the universe could apply, so long as they showed devotion to Alkanist teachings. To this day, the majority of Ror Units devote themselves to the ways of paladins.
Etymology[]
Ror Unit is an approximation of the word the Ror use to describe themselves. The proper name, "Ror" is a fairly close pronunciation while the "Unit" is a translation of their preferred word for themselves. Within their collectivist societies, individuals are valued less than the whole, leading to the fairly depersonalized title of unit. Members of the Alkan Intendancy are considered to be "Ror," and have the title of "Unit," and Ror Units that abandoned the tradition are usually called "Rorrans," an exonym from Human languages. This is only internal, however. Externally they are referred to as the same species with the same name.
Biology[]
The Ror Units are composed of trillions of tiny robots, each with a different task much like organic life forms. For ease of movement, the inside of a Ror Unit is filled with a highly viscous opaque solution of water. Biologists call the nanomachines "nanites" to avoid confusion with artificial nano-technology that is also present in the body.
Anatomy[]
Ror Units have two to four legs and two to six arms (depending on the situation). This offers a wide-range of mobility and an increased ability to climb or to crawl if another limb is damaged. In a normal state, they will have two arms and two legs. Mounted on their torsos is a head with one large eye and audio sensors. The eye is 15 centimeters across, while the audio sensor are reverse to it. This head can swivel 360 degrees and can angle up and down about 66 degrees.
Ror Units are hermaphrodites, but not in the traditional sense of the word. When mating, they simply exchange their genetic code through pulses of data exchanged through connections similar to data ports. Both of them will average out their own and their partner's genetic code and then create a spore after several weeks. This roughly spherical spore is several centimeters across when ejected from the body. The parents will usually both care for these spores by giving them food, water, and keeping them warm.
Over the next year and a half, they will grow in diameter to a maximum of approximately 21 centimeters. After this they will begin metamorphosing into a mature Ror Unit. This process takes seven months, over which they will be nurtured and fed by their parents. Two years after birth, they are able to walk, talk, and have learning abilities.
Physical[]
They have a skin made up of hexagonal "tiles" interlocked with each other. They are very small, between 1 to 2 millimeters in width, as to allow for easy movement. These tiles are tough, composed of oxidized iron with a hardness and appearance similar to volcanic glass. Their skin is filled with hydrophobic compounds to keep the incredibly toxic water out of their body. Even so, these tiles periodically shed as they get damaged or inevitably rust.
The concept of organs is almost entirely absent from Ror Units. Rather than organs, there are trillions of machines suspended in a highly viscous oil solution. While most of the time the machines form into macro-scale complexes, much of the time they do not. Digesting food, repairing others, ejecting waste and foreign materials, cleaning the solution, repairing wires, creating more of themselves, repairing motors, and signaling each other for coordination is just one aspect of this task. When Ror Units sleep, this is when the cells recharge. The longest a Ror Unit can go without sleep is a little over 40 hours before they sustain serious internal damage.
Muscles in a Ror Unit are essentially just small electric motors. These motors evolved to be highly efficient and to generate little heat as they are covered in lubricants. Each one has a wire leading to it so they can move as the "brain" tells them to and so they have the electricity to work. The motors are mounted near joints. They range in size from several tenths of a millimeter across to over ten centimeters in the case of the arms and legs.
Nervous System[]
Every motor and sensor is connected to the "brain" with a wire. These wires, usually only 25 micrometers across, making them only slightly wider than human nerve cells. These wires are most often made up of pure copper or silver (depending on availability). They are usually mounted to the skeleton mounted on "poles." Along the length of the wire, hundreds of machines hold it in place to prevent it from breaking while dozens travel the length of the wire to maintain the casing around it as well as the wire itself.
In the center of the torso is the central processor, what is essentially their brain. Unlike artificial computers, they transmit analog signals based on the intensity of the stream of current. This computer is surrounded by a dense network of wires. When a Ror Unit is first developing, billions of nanites will form into a roughly circular disc. This disc will be engraved with the billions of conduits, terminals, analog logic gates, and mathematical computation gates. An interesting property of this nervous system allows for incredibly simple procedures to connect the "brain" to external computers. Even so, mind-uploading does not behave any differently for a Ror Units than other species.
Vocalization[]
Ror Units possess a small disk-shaped device within their chest cavity encased in the torso. At the top of this case is a void filled with air that has a needle-like instrument pass over the disk. When speaking, the disk spins rapidly, causing the needle to vibrate over grooves in the disk. The needle is attached to a porous membrane that amplifies the sound, resulting in a "voice." Since the most sounds are nearby to one another, the needle only needs to move a handful of millimeters to access new sounds.