Radiants

The Radiant were as much a mystery to themselves as they were to anyone else. While they lived on Earth, they knew they were not of the Human race, that much was told to them by their ancestors who first arrived there. Beyond that, however, they knew little else, and simply carried out their existence as much like Humans as they could. But how did they explain their extraordinary powers? Their talents and unusual characteristics? Did they have any purpose at all for being?

Peaceful, gentle, and pacifistic, the Radiant strived to live in harmony with nature and all beings, and avoid conflict. They had a strong affinity with nature, especially with plants and tree life.

Physiology

On the outside, a Radiant is identical in looks to a Human. They have multiple pigmentations and skin tones, and possess no particularly visible variations that would make them stand out from humans. However, from there, all the differences begin to appear. As a species, they are particularly weak and extremely fragile, with bones and a structure so brittle, a mere child could kill a Radiant with just a touch. Their bones are hollow and very light, so as a result, while they appear to be humans of average sizes, they are usually less than half their estimated weight based on visual appearances.

This grants them some advantages in return, as they can run faster, jump higher, and reflex with impressive agility compared to a human. This lightweight aspect extends to their hair as well, and the slightest movements of their heads can cause their hair to float up around them and then take a very long time to descend. This gives them a very ethereal feature.

They are also highly susceptible to disease and toxins, having very poor immune systems, they tend to showcase symptoms of illness or poisoning two times faster, and are more likely to die than recover.

To compensate for such high vulnerability and frailty, the Radiant developed psychokinetic and photokinetic abilities. Their psychokinesis creates a protective field of manipulative energy around their bodies both inside and outside that essentially increases their durability until they are almost on level with the average Human, though they are still far weaker.

The energy field can instinctively be shifted to hide their true natures from other races, essentially making them seem on standard scans to be something else by altering their energy signatures. This ability continues to work even when a Radiant is asleep or otherwise incapacitated. Beyond this, the Radiant don't seem to be able to use their psychokinesis for anything else.

The other, more unusual talent is their ability to generate light. The Radiant can turn their entire extremities into light of virtually any colour. In addition to that, they can exhale a small amount of vapour that glows brightly for a few minutes before fading away completely. Their control of this ability is so keen, that they can make specific parts of their bodies glow if they so wish, and even their eyes can give off light. There is no known purpose for their photokinetic abilities, other than that they can use this ability.

Aside from the hair on their heads, their eyebrows, eyelashes, and beards for men, the Radiant do not grow hair on the rest of their bodies.

Because of their unusual talent in photokinesis, the Radiant generally have excellent eyesight, and can manipulate light particles in their eyes to enable them to see even in the dark. Of course they can simply turn their bodies to light to banish darkness altogether. Their other senses are somewhat enhanced too, in comparison with humans, and they can hear, smell, taste, and even feel things better and more acutely.

In terms of reproduction, the Radiant are no different than humans and have the same amount of time in incubation and childbirth. Almost all organs are virtually identical save that the Radiant have more fragile builds.

The lifespan of an average Radiant on Earth is between 70 - 100 years. The lifespans on other colonies or the nameless homeworld is anywhere between 30 - 200 years.

Psychology

The Radiant psyche is that they are not superior, nor inferior, but simply servants and willing watchers of all races, their attention rapt, and alert for danger.

Even so, they are rather skittish, timid and swift to hide, at the very least in mentality, for there is so little a Radiant can do to preserve their own lives.

Beyond this, they are more or less similar to Humans in mentalities, albeit with far less ambitious build and desire.

Strangely, they are often self-motivated in mind and spirit to perform feats that they feel is necessary to achieve a goal.

Language

The language of the Radiant is mellifluous and somewhat tricky for non-members of their race to learn. It is tricky because in the first place, the Radiant generally do not make a habit of identifying themselves to others, and the second is that the way the tongue needs to move just to correctly pronounce the words and sentences in their language requires concentration and constant practice. They call their language Gíl-anhir in its native tongue. However, only the Radiant on their homeworld truly ever use this language, as most others would adapt to the alternate languages that they learn from other cultures that they assimilate themselves into.

Home World

The location of the Radiant homeworld has been lost to time and memory. The ancestors of the Earth Radiant never revealed the location of their world, for fear that the Humans might wish to subjugate them, should they learn of their existence.

Culture & Customs

The Radiant have developed culturally to be quite pacifistic and peaceful. Their pacifism is such that they are more likely to run away than to even try defending themselves from an attack. However, a Radiant may choose to stand in the way of an attacker and sacrifice him/herself in order to allow escape for others who are fleeing.

They have over time conditioned their minds to never hold themselves in regard as superior to other races, but as servants and willing watchers, and keepers of lore. In fact, their love and appreciation for lore, music and culture extends beyond their own race. They are much like the Iotians, who are highly intelligent and superior mimics of culture; they adapt easily to new cultures, languages and social behavior. They can assimilate themselves into completely alien societies and in a short amount of time, seem like natives.

This ability to adapt to other cultures does not completely remove their own sense of pacifism, however, and if they enter a violent or dangerous culture, they generally shy away from such, or else they would simply live on the fringes of society to avoid standing out too conspicuously.

The Radiant are generally vibrant, jovial, friendly and likable. Their easy-going nature and ability to make friends allows them to avoid making too many people hostile or unfriendly towards them. While they generally avoid revealing who they really are when blending in with other races, they are poor liars and do not make great fabricators of artificial facts. This aspect seems to apply to their talent in photokinesis.

On their homeworld, and continued somewhat by offworld colonies, the Radiant are very in tune with nature, and often live in harmony with their world. They dress in colours common to their environment, often using materials available to them in their immediate surroundings. Most of them sleep in the open or in trees, and use a gigantic leaf that grows between two trunks as their beds, wrapping the leaf's folds around them for warmth and protection.

As their own culture they have developed fine art, music, dances and folklore. Much of their songs, music and dances are rather similar to celtic styles on Earth.

They have no forms of currency, and generally trade with one another using a barter system, although, they prefer to simply give what another needs, because in turn, the same will be done for them.

Marriage is a simple affair amongst the Radiant, and the customs of courtship almost childlike and pure, innocent and honest. Part of the ritual involves their powers of light to be used. Like their general greeting by raising a hand and turning the palm into multicoloured lights, the pair would interlock fingers, their palms alight, and speak a vow of eternal union towards one another. Once a union is to be affirmed, the couple would announce their desire to a priest, who would assist them with arranging a gathering of the nearby peoples and the families to witness and bless the union. From there, the man and woman may call upon friends and family to assist in building a new shelter for themselves, generally decorating a new tree or building what looks like a bird's nest with a roof if they prefer living on the ground.

While human looking, the Radiant do possess a rather unique, ethereal aspect. Their hair is so light in weight, that the slightest movements can cause their hair to float up and take a long time to descend back into place. Due to this, the Radiant on Earth often cut their hair very short or tie small, near-invisible weights to their hair so that it would fly up less often and signal a strangeness to them.

Radiant women also have a tendency to walk on their toes, due to their own light frames, and prefer to walk around barefoot. Seeing one walking in a slow and graceful manner, with her hair trailing along in gently flailing wisps, can cause her to look like a ghost with a semi-solid frame, especially when she's glowing.

On the matter of gender superiority, the males appear dominant, though this aspect is seldom visible, as they do not exhert authority over women and women can be found in almost any profession, attaining equal opportunities as men.

The Radiant are generous people, and love giving gifts to one another, or to visitors to their world (though those are few and far between).

History

What little is remembered of the very first Radiant is that they are quite possibly one of the few races in existence where violence and war virtually does not exist.

Their developments ventured into purely artistic, creative and harmless pursuits. Through unknown means, they still developed quickly through a unique and unusual industrial age, and ventured into the space age over several thousand years.

By the time of Earth's 1900s, the Radiant have already been involved in warp travel for centuries, though little progress is made to further advance their capacities beyond warp 8 since then. They spread out into the galaxy, settling down with other near-human or human looking races, and assimilating into those races for purposes known only to the Radiant themselves.

To some extent, the Radiant partially influenced these cultures with a touch of their own, which might explain the Risians and various others.

Contact with the Radiant on their own homeworld is limited, and for reasons unknown, they always escape subjugation by more dominant or aggressive races, though trade and exchanges have been made by them with other friendlier races.

However, attempts have been made to capture individual Radiant for their beauty and unique abilities, though their frailty made capturing one intact a rather difficult venture, and for the most part, they escape capture by either dying or simply being too elusive.

From here, the rest of the history is dedicated to the Radiant on Earth.

Hailing from a exploration and assimilation vessel, a large band of colonists reach the planet Earth, and begin to study the Humans in secret to see if they could safely join the Human race in peace. However, the 1980s is a period of general unrest in Human history, the time which the Radiant arrive in.

It is found that Humans are too aggressive and violent for them.

Dismayed by their findings and afraid of the Humans, the Radiant decide to forego assimilation into this race, but a catastrophic engine failure forces their hand, and the Radiant make a crash landing in Rendlesham Forest, England, in late December of 1980.

The survivors quickly scrounge what supplies they can take from their inoperable craft and flee.

Forced to live amongst what they consider a particularly dangerous race, the Radiant use their adaptive nature to blend in, and find that their pacifism is ill-suited to most of Human behavior, so they eventually founded a town under the guise of an Amish community. Most of the Radiant flock together to maintain safety and also keep a pure bloodline should the time ever come that they would have a chance to return to the stars.

As the years continued, the original members of the doomed colony ship begin to suspect they might never be able to return home, and so they arrange long-term survival plans, for when the Humans might achieve warp travel. However, more and more of the original colonists begin to abandon the plan and simply teach their children to accept themselves as pacifist humans, maintaining minimal contact with the actual race.

Some of the Radiant do live in the heart with Humans, however, and these are the first people to lose their original name, and go with the name of Radiant, based on their photokinetic abilities.

While the Radiant of Earth thrive somewhat despite their situation, the same cannot be said for their homeworld. At some point in time, a mass suicide occurs, wiping out the entire population of the planet. Over time, the colonies begin experiencing what is known as the Fading Of Light/Hope, a despair that sets into their very souls, and eventually, these colonies fall prey to manic depression and suicidal tendencies. Though most commonly, they simply settle down, and cease activity, even breathing.

The causes for this elude the Earth Radiant however, and why, is unknown. But for the time being, up until the present time, they alone, remain filled with aspiration and hope. Most Radiant continue to keep to themselves, rather than open up to the Federation about their existence, mostly out of traditional fear and wariness rather than a current opinion.

Government & Military

The Radiant have no military to speak of, nor a particularly organized government system. Most of them live in tiny communities, and family units where the patriarch and matriarch leads. Some of the larger communities, as large as a small city, will have a "chief" who receives any complaints or issues, which he or she will address to the best interests of all involved. If they are ever faced with military danger, unfortunately, their only option is to run and hide.

Technology

Their level of technology was outdated by Federation standards, though they did possess a curious form of Antiproton weaponry. Their weapons were not meant for combat, however, but merely for ease of space travel through meteor infested territory. They had more superior shielding and sensor technology, however.

The Earth Radiant, though, did little to progress as they have little left behind of their own technology, and anything that they do have, is closer to Human and Federation type of levels in progress.

Mythology

The oldest beliefs of the Radiant is that they have been created to seek out an unknown darkness, to shed light on it, and bring it into the open. They worship a one creator God, whom they believed all life came from, and thusly, they believe that they have been given a divine task, and only by accomplishing it, can they truly become worthy and free to exist in any way they see fit.

They send out colonies everywhere to expand their race, to make friends, and to also seek out this mysterious darkness, whom they believe is another race of beings who are lost in darkness.

In time however, a conclusion, or a sensation is felt within almost all Radiant, and they believe they have failed somehow, and thusly, are no longer worthy of living. It is this belief that led the Radiant on their homeworld to commit mass suicide.

The cause of this sensation is unknown, and its source an utter mystery. However, those beyond the homeworld take longer to feel it, save for the ones on Earth, who don't feel it at all, and continue to thrive somewhat.

Special Notes

The Radiant and their talents are considered mainly from the Earth colony, since they are the most able of their race presently.

Over the years, some abilities or talents may have been lost, but there are some talents that have been found, or at the very least, maintained, including:

• Photokinetic Abilities:
  • Light Projection: Allows the Radiant to create intense, disorienting light, temporarily blinding the victims
  • Night Vision: Allows the Radiant to direct more light waves toward their eyes, enhancing their vision at night
  • Visual Illusions: Create/generate/increase, absorb, shape and manipulate light and colours - creating brief mirages
  • Photokinetic Regeneration: The Radiant can absorb light/photons to regenerate their bodies with the amount of light drained defining the speed of healing
  • Photokinetic Invisibility: The Radiant can become invisible when in/on/touching light