The Ikire

Social Details

The Ikire are closely related to insects. The colony contains: workers, soldiers and the queen. They communicate though telepathy. The entire race is psychically capable. For the most part the psychic power manifests itself as regular technical systems would.

When the queen is in imminent danger of being killed, she selects a suitable candidate for the transfer of spirit. The candidate is selected by both it's experience and relative safety to get away from being killed itself. The queen then discharges her spirit, containing both the knowledge of the spiecies as well as the power to transform the chosen biologically into another queen.

Biological Details

The Ikire range from the size of humanoids, their 'normal' size, to those massing of modern day tanks (rare). They have a bipedal appearance, two legs, two arms and a body, but lacking a discernible head. Their hands are two fingers and an opposable thumb. Workers tend to have an exposed muscular structure while soldiers have a tough carapace. All have a rapid healing rate and are very strong. Intellectually, they are not much more advanced then insects. While Ikire are biologically able to spontaneously adapt new features and capabilities, they don't unless faced with direct stimulation. This adaptation process also requires time.

The queen's main duties are to lay eggs and direct the colony. Intellectually she is about equivalent to a human, what she makes up for in being able to direct the entire colony telepathically, she loses in imagination. The queen may lay dozens of eggs a day. The purpose of each egg, either a worker or soldier, is determined during the laying.

The eggs are then taken care of by nurses, specially directed workers. They remain eggs for about a week until they hatch to larval form. Under the care and feeding of the nurses, they mature until their final emergence.

They are naturally able withstand standard pressures to the vacuum of space but may have to adapt to differing conditions such as arctic and desert.

One important note of soldiers, is that of an internal cavity in thebody. It almost resembles an armored marsupial pouch. Its function is amater of debate since they themselves don't seem to make use of it.