Elaysians - Codafied

[Perrryyy]

Elaysians (heavily based on Dan Gurden's Icon Elaysian Template (no copyright infringement intended, Dan!)

Personality: Elaysians are a strongwilled, impulsive people bearing a slight resemblance to humans. Their intellect makes them excellent scientists or science officers, but their determination rarely keeps them from achieving their goals.

Physical description: Elaysians bear a striking resemblance to Humans with two exceptions, the first being their V-shaped ridges on the forehead, the second being their inability to tolerate Earth-like and higher gravities. Their bones are share similarities to an Earth's bird, being both strong yet light enough to allow flight.

Homeworld: Elaysians reside (possibly with other species) on Elay, a low-gravity world in the Alpha Quadrant, and a member of the UFP. Their lower atmosphere has almost now gravity, lending to the Elaysians seeming ability to fly on their homeworld. Elaysians find adapting to Earth-like and higher gravities quite difficult, and therefore few Elaysians ever leave their homeworld.

Culture : Elaysians excel in the sciences, especially those that have to do with the exploration of space. Elay is a democracy, its officials being elected and named "The Exalted Ones". Members of the planet choose one of this council to speak for each individual race (there are six) of Elay. Only the Elaysians themselves have contact with Starfleet, and that is seldom. Apparently their headstrong attitude transcends their politics as well.

Languages: Elaysian, Federation Standard

Names: Elaysians place the given name before the Family name.

Family names : Bertoran, Pazlar

Given Names : Tangre, Lucio, Tandra, Melora


Favored professions: Inquisitive beings as they are, Elaysians tend toward the sciences, either choosing to remain a civilian scientist or joining Starfleet and becoming a Starfleet Science Officer. Due to their understanding of flight on their homeworld, they also make excellent pilots.


Species adjustments : -1 Vit, +1 Int, -2 Str, - 1 Agility

(Note: I'm negotiable on the Agility, and possibly the Vitality)

Species Abilities: Zero G Tolerant

Bonus Skill: Science Elaysians gain a +2 bonus to Science skill tests

(I'm negotiable here too)

Questions? Comments? Criticisms? Flames? Attacks on my sanity and/or parentage?

[Sea Tyger]

These are not the Elaasians of "Elaan of Troyius" fame, correct?

[AslanC]

Nope these are from DS9.

Yet another failed romance for D. Bashir. Man between him, Laforge and Kim there was some hard luck in Starfleet

[Perrryyy]

Originally posted by Sea Tyger
These are not the Elaasians of "Elaan of Troyius" fame, correct?

Originally posted by AslanC
Nope these are from DS9.

Yet another failed romance for D. Bashir. Man between him, Laforge and Kim there was some hard luck in Starfleet

AslanC is correct. These Elaysians are the beings from a low-grav world. Melora Pazlar being the most famous Elaysian from the second season DS9 episode, "Melora".

[Sea Tyger]

Ah, these are the ones with the almost avian-like bone structure, who cannot function in Earth-normal gravity worlds without the use of an exoskeleton, correct? Wasn't the girl also part of the genetically enhanced group that Julian was treating in like the 6th or 7th Season?

[Perrryyy]

Originally posted by Sea Tyger
Ah, these are the ones with the almost avian-like bone structure, who cannot function in Earth-normal gravity worlds without the use of an exoskeleton, correct?

Correct! This is the species my first post covers.

Wasn't the girl also part of the genetically enhanced group that Julian was treating in like the 6th or 7th Season?

No. The Elaysian was Melora. The genetically enhanced girl was Sarina. Two different characters, two different actors. IIRC, Sarina was human. There is one similarity, however. Bashir fell for both women.

[aelius]

I always thought the idea of a class M world with practically zero gravity was on the unlikely side. Possible if you assume a gas torus is keeping the atmosphere from flying away, but the planet would have to be composed of incredibly light elements.
I consider a Smoke Ring, as described in the Larry Niven books "The Integral Tree's" and "The Smoke Ring" to be a much more reasonable homeworld for the Elaysians.
For those who have not read the books in question, the Smoke Ring is a gas torus thrown off by a gas giant pulled in to close to a neutron star. It creates a habitable non-planet with a volume of 30 Earths.
While this an unlikely astronomical formation, I believe it to be more realistic than a class M planet with no more gravity than an asteroid.
Also in my campaign Elaysian's have the ability to propel themselves at extremely low accellerations by interacting with the highly charged electromagnetic fields of the neutron star (or aboard a ship with no gravity). I realize this was never intended by the show, but the poor zero-g shots of Melora in her cabin had her changing her vector in midair. This would be impossible without some method of self propulsion.
Besides, it makes good evolutionary sense to use some kind of method to control their flight, and since they don't have wings or other aerodynamic surfaces I gave them the EM propusion.

[Perrryyy]

Bringing this sucker back on topic...

Anyone agree/disagree with the Coda take on Elaysians in the first post of this thread?

[aelius]

Sure.
Increase the STR penalty and eliminate the Agility penalty.
Also, it seems that much of what you are describing as racial attitudes are based solely on the character of Melora.
For instance, the Unyielding trait. According to Melora herself most Elaysians never leave their homeworld because the gravity is too bothersome. This does not sound like an unyielding race to me. She said that she was stubborn, this leads me to believe that she was more unyielding than most Elaysians.
Hope that helped.

[Perrryyy]

I'll agree on the strength penalty. Truth be told I should agree with you on the unyielding nitpick too, but as a person who lives every day with canes & braces, I wrote this from my little world view of the disabled (and even I admit I'm a bit ballsy for a disabled person)....



I got half way through this post before I realized whit I'd just typed about "my little world view" about disabled individuals being strong willed. It's true of the DS9 character & me, but you raise a good point about it not being true for the species as a whole.

Unyielding point removed

After thinking about it, I think the agility penalty should stay in play if they're in a high grav environment, to reflect the fact that they have to have assistance to adapt to higher gravity. Not sure how to deal with that, other than to have the agility penalty present when they are in higher than Elay gravity situations.

Feel free to talk me out of it though.

[aelius]

Try giving them a flaw, maybe a minus 2 or 3 when in a gravity field.
Perhaps you could scale the penalty for the various categories of gravity listed in the planet creation section of the NG.
See how that works.
And I still recommend checking out The Integral Tree's for the setting for Elaysia.

[Perrryyy]

Originally posted by aelius
Try giving them a flaw, maybe a minus 2 or 3 when in a gravity field.
Perhaps you could scale the penalty for the various categories of gravity listed in the planet creation section of the NG.
See how that works.

Thanks, I'll work on it some more.

And I still recommend checking out The Integral Tree's for the setting for Elaysia

Can you clue me in here? What's this? a book? Help me out

[aelius]

The book's "The Integral Tree's" and "The Smoke Ring" were written by Larry Niven and are set in a natural phenomena called the Smoke Ring which I described in the post above.
The stories are about the descendants of a sublight exploration vessel who were stranded in the Smoke Ring centuries earlier and have adapted to the microgravity environment.
The Smoke Ring itself is the real star of the books and is well described and populated with an interesting variety of plant and animal life.
If you are interested in using Elaysia itself as a setting for an adventure then the books make for an excellent setting guide.
I am not sure if they are still in print, but if they are then you could get them from any major book store chain.
Personally I think they are still in print, Larry Niven is one of the masters of scifi and has been writing books since the 50's. There is always a large Larry Niven selection in the scifi section of book stores.