As Terragen civilization spread throughout the galaxy, it encountered both living aliens and the remains of extinct alien cultures. Some of these ancient races built vast empires but have since vanished without a trace, and indeed have been gone for millions of years before life even crawled up on dry land on Earth. Those who were expecting a galactic community of civilizations were disappointed. Space turned out to be empty and desolate, and aliens few and far between.

Not one single alien race has been found to be similar in physiology to any metazoan life form that originated on Earth, and the once popular panspermia hypothesis has long been shown to be invalid.

Below are some examples of the races and civilizations (or in some cases, traces of said civilizations) encountered by Terragen explorers.

The Archivists: The oldest known intelligent life; an extinct species or group of species, known only from the enigmatic and undeciphered data stores they created nearly a billion and a half years before the beginning of Terragen history.

The Hildemar's Knots: These beings consist of knots of the vortex and charge tubes in the neutronium mantle of neutron stars; they are only a few centimetres across. Successful communication with them is rare, since they regard the universe outside their environment merely as an abstract mathematical problem.

The Jeepers: A cyborg species, apparently evolved from elements of a xenosophont-built terraforming swarm. Their distant ancestors were general-purpose maintenance morphs designed to build and maintain interstellar spacecraft and their cargo of terraforming equipment.

The Muuh: Evolved on a cold low-gravity Titan-like moon somewhere in the Cygnus direction of the Orion Arm, these vaguely arthropod-like beings have a biochemistry based on liquid hydrocarbons. They are slow-moving, and ancient, having achieved spaceflight perhaps 120 to 180 million years ago. It is difficult to distinguish their science and history from their fiction.

The Meistersingers: Sapient beings who consist of a small immobile tree-like organism and a 'choir' of symbiotic crawlers and fliers who serve as its hands, eyes, and ears. Only a few representatives of their civilization have been contacted, but it is believed that they are from elsewhere in the galaxy, and that their species has been extant for millions of years.

The To'ul'hs: The first living and unequivocally sophont species encountered by Terragen explorers. They are native to a hot Venus-like planet with an incredibly deep and dense atmosphere. They resemble four-armed octopi, or perhaps starfish, and are nearly blind; they depend instead on echolocation and an electrical sense. When first encountered, the To'ul'hs had simple technologies despite their complex and ancient civilization, but since contact they have developed their own spacefaring cultures.


To learn more about the xenosophont species encountered by Terragen civilization, click HERE.

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