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The Enlar are believed to be the eldest race in
the known universe. Their existence dates to before the
Ancient Ignus War—even further back than the stretches
of recorded history itself. They were the first to
ascend to the heavens in vessels capable of interstellar
travel, and the first to explore the vast abyss beyond
the safety of their home world. Since then, it has been
their technological ingenuity that has brought the
majority of the Union’s races to the freedom of space.
Anatomically, an Enlar is little more than a
throbbing mass of dense neurological flesh supported by
hollow crablike appendages: its brain composes nearly
two-thirds of its body mass. A single large eye provides
it with a powerfully acute sense of vision, and the
sixteen tendrils protruding from the base of its
cerebral cortex vibrate to emit high-pitched squealing
sounds that act as its voice. Using these same tendrils,
an Enlar can directly “jack into” and control their
starships and other technologies, via the transmission
of electrical impulses that behave in accordance with
the its thought processes, without the need of hands or
any analog devices.
They evolved on a hostile planet wrought with a
nightmarish variety of natural predators that thirsted
for the delicious taste of Enlar flesh. Since their
sense of touch is extremely receptive to pain, it is
impossible to even comprehend the sheer agony that an
Enlar experiences during death. And because they were
helplessly easy prey to the much larger and faster
creatures of their ancient worlds, the Enlar
civilization was founded upon a compulsive, almost
neurotic paranoia of all other living creatures.
But the Enlars' abhorrence of physical violence
is more than duly compensated for by their quick,
calculating minds and a seemingly uncanny ability to
create structure and order. As their society progressed
through the ages, their incredibly potent minds led them
to the development of numerous technological
achievements. They contrived powerful weapons to protect
themselves, and ultimately vanquished the predators of
their native planet with nothing but their own ingenuity.
While most of the galaxy’s other races were still
struggling to overcome the feral beasts of their
individual home worlds, the Enlar had already begun to
construct a nation that would one day stretch to the very
reaches of the known universe. They were the founders of
the Union itself, and to this day remain its most
prominent and influential administrators—deep within the
relative safety of the its most safeguarded territories. |
