The True
Neutral Aquarians
The
Aquarians are the galaxy’s true neutral race. This causes members of all of the
opposing races to be split about how to deal with them. Every race has a
faction that argues that the Aquarians should be viewed as friends and that
they are just keeping any one race from dominating the galaxy. At the same
time, every race has opponents that say the Aquarians are vile intruders that
need to be wiped out of the galaxy. This is a problem for all of the races
since the Aquarians live on planets composed entirely of water and therefore
almost impossible to destroy. As a result, most races do their best to avoid
conflict and confrontation with the Aquarians, although none are totally
successful.
At
any one time an Aquarian fleet may be assisting an outnumbered Terran outpost
while on the other side of the same sector an Entomolian scout ship is being
rescued from a Terran superior force and allowed to move on without any
concern.
The
most unique feature of the Aquarian forces is that they prefer to cripple ships
and leave as much of the crew alive as possible. It is not unusual for the
scene of an Aquarian battle to resemble a huge ship graveyard full of wrecked
ships emitting emergency beacon signals.
The Other
Races
None
of the other galactic races considers the Aquarians allies or even friends.
That being said, each race has their own formal doctrine on how to deal with
the Aquarians. The most benevolent of these races are the Avarians who see the
Aquarians as annoying, but since the Aquarians are not of fond planets with
wide-open spaces and the Avarians love such planets, the two races rarely find
themselves at odds with each other. The Terrans and Entomolians are pretty much
ambivalent to the Aquarians, taking their assistance when given and avoiding
situations that would increase the probability of bringing the Aquarians in on
the opposing side. The Carnivorans, on the other hand, hate the Aquarians and
since the Carnivorans pride themselves on setting up situations where they have
the upper hand they often find themselves opposed
by Aquarians forces.
Aquarian
Biology
Aquarians
are very small in stature and although they are one of the oldest spacefaring
races, they are still dependent upon an aquatic environment. An average
Aquarian stands only four feet tall and resembles a bipedal fish with thin arms
and legs. They are grey in color with a fine coat of scales that covers their
entire body. Both genders of the Aquarian race look identical to all but the
Aquarians themselves.
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Aquarian
Alliance
The
entire Aquarian race views itself as one single large ‘school’. Each planet and
system within the alliance has a representative that sits on the council and
debates which systems (or events) the alliance should intercede in and which
they should not. This does not mean that the entire alliance has to agree on
any individual event; instead, several individual systems might agree on a
situation to intercede upon and send their individual fleets to perform the
required action. Many races view this as a weakness; most often, the
Carnivorans have made this mistake. On several occasions a pride of Carnivoran
ships have used this belief to give them courage to attack an Aquarian system.
Once or twice, the Carnivorans have even made the mistake of capturing an
Aquarian system. When these events occurred, it has given the other races a
respite because all Aquarian ships in the alliance return to the captured
system and destroy the offending forces. Their “school of piranha” mentality
has served the Aquarians well and to anyone’s knowledge, no race has ever
captured and held an Aquarian planet for more than a few weeks.
Aquarian
Technology and Ship Designs
Aquarian
ship construction has advanced beyond that of the other races in many ways. The
other races have speculated this is due to the role that the Aquarians have
given themselves in the universe. Since the Aquarians view themselves as the
universes’ balancing force, most of their ship designs are maximized for
defense and crippling other ships. That does not mean that Aquarian ships
cannot destroy other ships or go on the offensive, it is just that they prefer
not to.
This
philosophy affects three different aspects of their designs. First, the
Aquarian armor designers have found a way of implementing swarms of nannites to
reinforce damaged armor by moving undamaged armor from other areas of the ship
to help cover damaged sections of armor. The second innovation developed by the
Aquarians is their field dampening missiles. These missiles are used to limit
the effectiveness of enemy weapons fire. The final different system on Aquarian
vessels is their sonic pulse cannons. These cannons cause serious damage to the
exterior of enemy vessels while still leaving life-support and internal structures
intact. Through these technologies, the Aquarians have become a major influence
in all systems and many believe that if they ever showed interest in conquering
non-aquatic worlds, they could become a serious threat to any race they focused
upon.
