Radiants
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The Radiant, also known as the Alata (as discovered by Heather McMillan) of Earth were as much a mystery to themselves as they were to anyone else. While they lived on the planet, 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 extremely 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 was identical in looks to a Human. They had multiple pigmentations, skin tones and possessed no particularly visible variations that would make them stand out from humans. However, from there, several differences begin to appear. As a species, they were 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 were hollow and very light, so as a result, while they appeared to be humans of average sizes, they were usually less than half their estimated weight based on visual appearances.
This granted them some advantages in return, as they could run faster, jump higher, and reflex with impressive agility compared to a human. This lightweight aspect extended to their hair as well, and the slightest movements of their heads could cause their hair to float up around them and then take a very long time to descend, giving them a very ethereal feature.
They were highly susceptible to disease and toxins, having very poor immune systems, showing symptoms of illness or poisoning two times faster, and were more likely to die than recover. Most medicines had an adverse effect on them as well, instead of being beneficial. As a result, Earth Radiant do not take any medications or allow doctors outside of their own to administer treatments.
To compensate for such high vulnerability and frailty, the Radiant developed psychokinetic and photokinetic abilities. Their psychokinesis created a protective field of manipulative energy around their bodies, both inside and outside, that essentially increased their durability until they were almost on level with the average Human, though they were still far weaker.
The energy field could 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 continued to work even when a Radiant was asleep or otherwise incapacitated. Beyond that, the Radiant didn't seem to be able to use their psychokinesis for anything else.
The other, more unusual talent was their ability to generate light. The Radiant could turn their entire extremities into light of virtually any color. In addition to that, they could exhale a small amount of vapor that glowed brightly for a few minutes before fading away completely. Their control of this ability was so keen, that they could make specific parts of their bodies glow if they so wished, and even their eyes could give off light. There was no known purpose for their photokinetic abilities, other than that they could use this ability.
Aside from the hair on their heads, their eyebrows, eyelashes, and beards for men, the Radiant did not grow hair on the rest of their bodies.
Because of their unusual talent in photokinesis, the Radiant generally had excellent eyesight, and could manipulate light particles in their eyes to enable them to see even in the dark. Of course, they could simply turn their bodies to light to banish darkness altogether. Their other senses were somewhat enhanced too, in comparison with humans, and they could hear, smell, taste, and even feel things better and more acutely.
In terms of reproduction, the Radiant were no different than humans and spent the same amount of time in incubation and childbirth. Almost all organs were virtually identical, save that the Radiant had more fragile builds.
The lifespan of an average Radiant on Earth was between 70 - 100 years. The lifespans on other colonies or the nameless homeworld was anywhere between 30 - 200 years.
Psychology
The Radiant psyche was that they were not superior, nor inferior, but simply servants and willing watchers of all races, their attention was rapt, and alert for danger. In fact, they consider all races to be superior, even gods, something which they sometimes say out loud without thinking.
Even so, they were rather skittish, timid, and swift to hide, for there was so little a Radiant could do to preserve their own lives.
Beyond this, they were more or less similar to Humans in mentalities, albeit with far less ambitious build and desire.
Strangely, they were often self-motivated in mind and spirit to perform feats that they felt were necessary to achieve a goal.
Language
The language of the Radiant was mellifluous and somewhat tricky for non-members of their race to learn. It was tricky because, in the first place, the Radiant generally did not make a habit of identifying themselves to others, and in the second place, the way the tongue needed to move just to correctly pronounce the words and sentences in their language required concentration and constant practice. They called their language Gíl-anhir in its native tongue. However, only the Radiant on their homeworld truly ever used this language, as most others would adapt to the alternate languages that they learned from other cultures that they assimilated themselves into.
Home World
The location of the Radiant homeworld was 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 developed culturally to be quite pacifistic and peaceful. Their pacifism was such that they were more likely to run away than to even try defending themselves from an attack. However, a Radiant could choose to stand in the way of an attacker and sacrifice him/herself in order to allow escape for others who were fleeing.
They had, over time, conditioned their minds to never hold themselves in superior regard to other races, but as servants and willing watchers, and keepers of lore for the gods (any other race). In fact, their love and appreciation for lore, music, and culture extended beyond their own race. They were much like the Iotians, who were highly intelligent and superior mimics of culture; they adapted easily to new cultures, languages, and social behavior. They could assimilate themselves into completely alien societies and in a short amount of time, seem like natives.
This ability to adapt to other cultures did not completely remove their own sense of pacifism, however, and if they entered a violent or dangerous culture, they generally shied away from such, or else they simply lived on the fringes of society to avoid standing out too conspicuously.
The Radiant were generally vibrant, jovial, friendly, and likable. Their easy-going nature and ability to make friends allowed them to avoid making too many people hostile or unfriendly towards them. While they generally avoid revealing who they really were when blending in with other races, they were poor liars and did not make great fabricators of artificial facts. This aspect seemed to apply to their talent in photokinesis.
On their homeworld, and continued somewhat by off-world colonies, the Radiant were very in tune with nature, and often lived in harmony with their world. They dressed in colors common to their environment, often using materials available to them in their immediate surroundings. Most of them slept in the open or in trees, and used a gigantic leaf that grew between two trunks as their beds, wrapping the leaf's folds around them for warmth and protection.
As for their own culture they developed fine art, music, dances, and folklore. Many of their songs, music, and dances were rather similar to Celtic styles on Earth.
They had no forms of currency, and generally traded with one another using a barter system, although, they preferred to simply give what another needed, because in turn, the same would be done for them.
Marriage was a simple affair among the Radiant, and the customs of courtship were almost childlike and pure, innocent and honest. Part of the ritual involved their powers of light. Like their general greeting by raising a hand and turning the palm into multicolored lights, the pair would interlock fingers, their palms alight, and speak a vow of eternal union towards one another. Once a union was 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 could call upon friends and family to assist in building a new shelter for themselves, generally decorating a new tree or building what looked like a bird's nest with a roof if they preferred living on the ground.
While human looking, the Radiant possessed a rather unique, ethereal aspect. Their hair was so light in weight, that the slightest movements caused 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 tied small, near-invisible weights to their hair so that it would fly up less often and signal their strangeness.
Radiant women also walked on their toes, due to their own light frames, and preferred to walk around barefoot. Seeing one walking in a slow and graceful manner, with her hair trailing along in gently flailing wisps, caused her to look like a ghost with a semi-solid frame, especially when she was glowing.
On the matter of gender superiority, the males appeared dominant, though this aspect was seldom visible, as they did not exhort authority over women and women could be found in almost any profession, attaining equal opportunities as men.
The Radiant were generous people, and loved giving gifts to one another, or to visitors to their world (though those were few and far between).
They were not particularly modest in regards to clothing, and it was not uncommon for Radiant on their own world to go about wearing very little, and what articles of fabrics they wore was so transparent so as to not hinder their light, that it did little to hide anything. Most tend to chafe from wearing what construed as normal clothes, especially footwear.
History
What little was remembered of the very first Radiant was that they were quite possibly one of the few races in existence where violence and war virtually did 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 had already been involved in warp travel for centuries, though little progress was 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 explained the Risians, Efrosians, and various others.
Contact with the Radiant on their own homeworld was limited, and for reasons unknown, they always escaped subjugation by more dominant or aggressive races through trade and exchanges made by them with other friendlier races.
However, attempts were 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 escaped capture by either dying or simply being too elusive.
From here, the rest of history was dedicated to the Radiant on Earth.
Hailing from an exploration and assimilation vessel, a large band of colonists reached the planet Earth, and began to study the Humans in secret to see if they could safely join the Human race in peace. However, the 1980s was a period of general unrest in Human history, the time which the Radiant arrived in.
It was found that Humans were too aggressive and violent for them.
Dismayed by their findings and afraid of the godlike Humans, the Radiant decided to forego assimilation into this race, but a catastrophic engine failure forced their hand, and the Radiant made a crash landing in Rendlesham Forest, England, in late December of 1980.
The survivors quickly scrounged what supplies they could take from their inoperable craft and fled.
Forced to live among what they considered a particularly dangerous race, the Radiant used their adaptive nature to blend in and found that their pacifism was ill-suited to most of Human behavior, so they eventually founded a town under the guise of an Amish community. Most of the Radiant flocked together to maintain safety and 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 began to suspect they would never be able to return home, and so they arranged long-term survival plans, for when the Humans achieved warp travel. However, more and more of the original colonists begin to abandon the plan and simply taught their children to accept themselves as pacifist humans, while maintaining minimal contact with the actual race.
Some of the Radiant lived with Humans, however, and these were the first people to lose their original name of Alata, and go with the name of Radiant, based on their photokinetic abilities.
While the Radiant of Earth thrived somewhat despite their situation, the same couldn't be said for their homeworld. At some point in time, a mass suicide occurred, wiping out the entire population of the planet. Over time, the colonies begin experiencing what was known as the Fading Of Light/Hope, a despair that set into their very souls, and eventually, these colonies fell prey to manic depression and suicidal tendencies. Though most commonly, they simply settled down, and ceased activity, including breathing.
The causes for this eluded the Earth Radiant, however, and why, was unknown. But for the time being, up until the present time, they alone remained filled with aspiration and hope. Most Radiant continued 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 had no military to speak of, nor a particularly organized government system. Most of them lived in tiny communities, and family units where the patriarch and matriarch led. Some of the larger communities, as large as a small city, would have a "chief" who received any complaints or issues, which he or she would address to the best interests of all involved. If they were ever faced with military danger, unfortunately, their only option was 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 had little left behind of their own technology, and anything that they did have was closer to Human and Federation levels in progress.
The metal that made the Earth Radiant's ship is known as Cascadium, unique to their homeworld, an iridescent alloy that is almost crystalline in nature, can react with photokinesis, creating a most beautiful cascade of light and prismatic reflections.
Mythology
The oldest beliefs of the Radiant were that they were created to seek out an unknown darkness, to shed light on it, and bring it into the open. They worshiped a one creator God, whom they believed all life came from, and thus, they believed they were given a divine task, and only by accomplishing it, could they truly become worthy and free to exist in any way they saw fit.
They sent out colonies everywhere to expand their race, to make friends, and to also seek out this mysterious darkness, which they believed was another race of beings who were lost in darkness.
In time however, a conclusion, or a sensation was felt within almost all Radiant, and they believed they had failed somehow, and thus, were no longer worthy of living. It was this belief that led the Radiant on their homeworld to commit mass suicide.
The cause of this sensation was unknown, and its source an utter mystery. However, those beyond the homeworld took longer to feel it, save for the ones on Earth, who didn't feel it at all, and continued to thrive somewhat.
Special Notes
The Radiant and their talents were considered mainly from the Earth colony, since they were the most notable of their race.
Over the years, some abilities or talents were lost, but there were some talents that were found, or at the very least, maintained, including:
- Photokinetic Abilities:
- Light Projection: Allowed the Radiant to create intense, disorienting light, temporarily blinding the victims
- Night Vision: Allowed 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 colors - creating brief mirages
- Photokinetic Regeneration: The Radiant absorbed light/photons to regenerate their bodies with the amount of light drained defining the speed of healing
- Photokinetic Invisibility: The Radiant become invisible when in/on/touching light
