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The Enlar
are 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 dozens of 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 a 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 world and, 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 their own ingenuity. While most of the
galaxy’s other races were still struggling to
overcome the feral beasts of their individual
homeworlds, the Enlar had already begun to
construct 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 Union’s most safeguarded
territories. |
