Waterbe

Overview
The Waterbe have only recently discovered interstellar travel, and even then by accident.

It started with an interplanetary exploration mission. A fusion powered probe was to be sent on a rocket into Unistarch orbit, and then sent into interplanetary space. Accelerating at 1g, it was to reach it's target within two weeks.

When it reached the target, a short range scan revealed an abundance of Element ¬∣\∣. The probe, with jets to enable at atmospheric flight, flew closer to this and then the blueprints for the warp drive were beamed upon the rocket that came with the lander. This rocket was designed to return to Unistarch, so within another two weeks the Waterbe had the secrets of long range space travel.

This Warp Drive allowed large payloads to be carried light years for prices around 100000 WCU, which is very cheap in comparison to other interstellar flight designs. The Waterbe populated three extraunistarchean planets, which have a combined population of 0.1 billion.

Visual Sense
The Waterbe's eyes are shielded by a small bony fringe, which protects it from the glaring sunlight on Unistarch. There is a photo-receptor (red because Shraak Prime does not release much red light, so they can afford to not see it) at the back of its eye which reflects low-frequency visible wavelengths of γ particles. This has a side affect of making it unable to see the colour red, so the political attire shown above is actually a shade of black to the eyes of a waterbe.

Olfactory Sense
Waterbe have a poor, undeveloped sense of smell through their tongues.

Gustatory Sense
Waterbe tastes can be split into 5 categories: lemtin (fizz), salt, alkali, neutral and bitter. Each of these tastes are detected by a different type of taste bud, which are arranged in a pattern similar to this throughout the entire tongue: lslslslslslslslslsls anananananananananan blblblblblblblblblbl sasasasasasasasasasa nbnbnbnbnbnbnbnbnbnb lslslslslslslslslsls

Haptic Sense
The Waterbe's sense of touch is not centralised, but sensors located everywhere on the body. It is most sensitive at the extremities of limbs, the mouth and the tail.

Aural Sense
Waterbe have a poor, undeveloped sense of hearing through small openings just behind their eyes. Within the opening is a flap of skin stretched across it which vibrates when loud sounds reach it and triggers nerve cells accordingly.

Electrostatic Sense
Waterbe have a line of cells runing down their neck which can detect static electricity. This allows them to sense the presence of objects touching them. This was used to negate camouflage attempts by fish in prehistoric Unistarch, however the contribution to sensory data due to this sense is low, so there is low distraction for Waterbe in packs.

Thermal Sense
The receptors on skin related to the haptic sense can also detect changes in temperature. This allows the Waterbe to avoid dangerously high and low temperatures.

Temporal Sense
The Waterbe brain is able to detect the passing of time, on both the macroscopic (estimations of time passed) and microscopic (differences in time between sound passing through one opening and through another). This allows them to create 3-D aural maps, and used to aid in hunting.

Vestibular Sense
The Waterbe have a cavity in the base of their skull lined with sensor cells. A spherical lump of bone is able to freely roll around this cavity, so the Waterbe are able to judge the orientation of the head.

Proprioceptive Sense
The Waterbe are also able to judge the relative positions of their body parts compared to other body parts through subconscious analysis of muscle movement combined with reinforecement from the visual sense.

Evolutionary Analysis
Earlier

The waterbe started as small, nucleus-less bacteria. With a symbiosis, the waterbe developed a nucleus to keep the DNA protected, and several chemicals in the cytoplasm.

Multicelluarity soon came. A jellyfish-like creature, which swims using tenticles, evolved, and a primitive jaw leading to toxic cells came. It was more efficient, and soon started swimming with jets.

The spikes on the creature turned into fins, which grew and strengthened into limbs. Nubs of bone on the waterbe's back lengthened into a sail, which due to technological advances is now useless and serves only to get infected, which is why many waterbe opt in for the removal operation.

Biological Analysis
The Waterbe are bipedal, fish like animals. They are 9 MDU tall. Their origin as an aquatic species was easily saw by the fins on the back and neck, however the Waterbe race now has the capability to remove the sail, which many Waterbe opt in to. Their mouth is streamlined and has two rows of canines, which are used for eating fish, the primary constitutient of the Waterbe's diet.

The Waterbe race has 67 large bones (vertabrae, skull, limbs) and countless smaller ones. Their genome contains 1.964 billion base pairs, spread over 10 chromasomes, each larger than an average chromasome for other DNA-based life.

They are striped sandy brown and orange, which served to camouflage individuals in the large deserts and grasslands of Unistarch.

Vetidom
Vetidom, the study of aging, has given Waterbien scientists a view on how aging works in Waterbe. There are four forms of aging that cause Waterbe to eventually grow old and die; only one has been cured.

Disease Aging
The first form of aging, and the only one to be cured, is disease aging. Because of the prevailence of bad hygene in primitive Waterbine cultures, many Waterbe died quickly due to disease and illness.

Life Expectancy: 5 Waterbe Years (1 Generation)

Hormonal Aging
The second form of aging, which is fully understood and almost solved, is hormonal aging. This type of aging results from the degeneration of hormone glands in the Waterbien body due to old age. The imbalance in hormones triggers a chain reaction that makes the immune system and the heart weaker.

Life Expectancy: 20 Waterbe Years (3 Generations)

Genetic Aging
The third form of aging is genetic aging, which though understood by Waterbe there is no known cure for it.This seems to be an in-built mechanism to kill Waterbe, contained in the genes. It means that the most vital cells in a Waterbe can only split 50 times each.

Life Expectancy: 30 Waterbe Years (4 Generations)

Accidental Aging
Due to the laws of chance, eventually Waterbe, even when all other forms of death are eradicated, will fall fowl to accidents and inevitable genetic defects.

Life Expectancy: 200 Waterbe Years (30 Generations)

Immortality
In absence of all forms of aging, Waterbe will be able to live forerver. Due to the high level of devotion to the Waterbe empire and also the large amount of ritualism, the Waterbe do not commit suicide (unlike neocortex-based races).

Life Expectancy: Infinite

Ecological Analysis
They lived as predators when they were animals, however now they do not hunt, instead growing fish tissue in vitro to feed the empire's 35.1 billion inhabitants. Most fish tissue growth is performed in offshore rigs known as Waterbe fish factories.

Dietary Analysis
The Waterbe's diet consists of meat and fish, with the average waterbe eating 4.8 ounces of fish and 2.4 ounces of meat every day (being cold blooded, a Waterbe does not require any heat from its metabolism and so can eat much less than a warm blooded animal). This means that Waterbe have an exceptionally high intake of Vitamin D, Vitamin B12 and Vitamin B6, and an exceptionally low intake of Vitamin C, Folate and Vitamin E.

Dental Analysis
Waterbe are very ignorant about the health of their teeth. This has an evolutionary and dietary reason though. As it was common for a Waterbe to lose teeth while hunting, they have the ability to regrow teeth in a single minor calender unit.

The teeth are also pointed backwards. This would have been to stop prey escaping.

Sociological Analysis
The Waterbe originated as predators and hunters, and as they had to kill to eat, the thought of war was hard wired into their brains. Due to them being carnivorous, they insinctively mark off pieces of terriotory as their own. They also made the Waterbe with the most "power" have the most resources. They did this to remove the pressure on the already strained resources.

This love of war has never ended. After the Abbantis Vellum, the final blow was dealt by a fleet of fusion-catalysed fission bombs. This destroyed many cities and the remaining countries were invaded by the 25-billion-strong Waterbe empire, thus creating the World Super Nation. Only after this final war were the waterbe able to make the first manned interplanetary spacecraft.

Now the Waterbe seek war with a smaller, weaker race, simply to satify the psycological crave left after the establishment of the World Super Nation.

Due to the way the Waterbien brain works, they are not conscious of feeling any sort of "emotion". Instead it seems to a be a primitive automated feature (for example, a Waterbe would have an emotion of pain, but not happiness or sadness).

Waterbe also seem to be strongly against Waterbe that are not part of their "herd". This does not seem to be optional, and instead, on sight of the unkown Waterbe, simply pumps out stress chemicals which alter decissiveness. This is probably a self-defence mechanism, similar to the uncanny valley. On the other hand, they show an affinity for creatures that meet the waterbien standard for cuteness, including baby waterbe.

Ethics
(main article: Waterbien Law and Ethics)

Waterbe ethics is based on disordering the universe in order to make the Waterbe Empire more ordered

Political Analysis
The entire planet Unistarch is completely encompassed by the Waterbe Empire, a authoritarian unitary state run by an oligarchy where Waterbe are judged based on their ideology, with even the oceans being inhabited by Waterbe on Waterbe Fusion Islands. The economy of it is based on corporations, which exchange symbolic money known as Waterbe Currency Units. Despite difficulties with communcation in the ever growing Waterbe Empire, this government has been able to be sustained due to the huge amounts of ritualism and commitment in the Waterbe Empire.

Before the huge war, the Waterbe were split into around 150 nations. These contained many small ones surrounding the sea, known as the Grassland States, and large ones in the deserts known as Desert States.

The Waterbe empire originated as a Grassland State known as Valena, and due to various trade ties with Vallum (a military superpower), became a province of it. Most political leaders of Vallum originated in Valena so Valena was able to conquer Unistarch.