The Americas are colonized by the Zloisp in 1300 (RAR!)

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Zor
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The Americas are colonized by the Zloisp in 1300 (RAR!)

Post by Zor »

It is the year 1300 when ROB decides to deposit on earth in the general area of Pittsburg, some fifty thousand Zloisp, aliens from a planet about 3,928 light years away at a late iron age level of development.
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Zloisp are radially symmetrical beings (they have no fronts nor backs) that stand between 1.8 and 1.4 meters tall and weigh about 40-80 kilograms on average with human level intelligence. They have six limbs in two sets of two. They have three eyes and six limbs (in two sets of three), which have three joints before ending in three digited feet and hands. Their mouth (and anii) located on the underside of their torso while their brain is located on a head on top of their body with their eyes. They can run as fast as a human can on their three legs. Each of their three arms is about 80% as strong as a human arm on average with hands one finger and two thumbs. Zloisp have three nostrils, each feeding into triple chambered central lung (though they can breathe out of their mouths as well) and communicate through speaking through said nostrils. Each nostril acts independantly. They have a six chambered heart. Zloisp are omnivorous and warm blooded, requiring about 3000 calories on average. Zloisp have eyes which are of comprable to humans in general performance (though their retinas never detach) and a 360 degree field of view, but their sense of hearing is less developed. Their biochemistry is similar enough to terran life so that they can eat most terran plants and animals and vice versa. A Zloisp can regenerate a lost hand or eye, but not a lost arm. Zloisp reproduce sexually, but only 0.333 percent of their population is fully male or fully female. Zloisp have three sexual organs located on the sides of their torso which can be either male or female. Zloisp have a fixed mating season every 14 months. Once they have mated they become gravid for three to six months (depending how many organs have been impregnated) before laying an football shaped egg about 25 centimeters long which hatches after an incubation of a month before hatching. Zloisp hatchlings mobile and mostly feral but not hostile to adult Zloisp in an infant stage which lasts about two years before their higher faculties develop. The mating instinct is less pronounced in indivduals who've laid eggs the previous year. They then grow to adulthood over a span of 13-15 years before reaching full size and sexual maturity simultaneously. Zloisp can reach ages of up to 100 years, though for those who reach adulthood 55-70 is more common.

These Zloisp (from the eastern temperate regions of their homeworld's southwester continent) are at a level of development that's roughly comprable to that of Europe at the same time, though with a few exceptions. The Zloisp have a better understanding of the applications of wind and water power than that of contemporary Europeans, the ability to forge plate armor and Chinese as well as having paper-making, but on the same note they have no real tradition of alchemy (beyond making dyes from plant extracts and a belief that all matter is made up of six basic elements: metal, air, water, fire, earth and sgritk (a catch all term for biological material)), their fortress designs and they their glassmaking is limited to the production of crude beads and fake gems. They've also contrived a fairly sophisticated semaphore based communication system for long distance communication. The Zloisp have a base twelve number system as well as a system of money based around tokens which can be redeemed for food from the granaries.

The Zloisp have an number of food and fiber crops. They also have a three domestic animals: the Kzelst, a starfish looking thing about 30 cm across and 10 cm tall bred for meat and eggs (they have 30,000 of these), the Nlosm, a general draft beast and meat animal (they have 10,000 of these)...
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...and the Scronik, a plodding 20 tonne hexipedal herbivore used as a heavy draft animal and warbeast similar to an elephant (they have 300 of these). They have no analog to the horse that they can ride.

The Zloisp have a walled city with a pyramidal keep in it's center with a population of 500. Around their city is farmland about as productive per square meter as medieval farmland is. Their army is composed of some 250 of the warriors depicted above. Said warriors are armed with either spears, shields and swords or crossbows and are clad in steel plate armor and are full time warriors. These are backed up by 1,000 levies which have steel helmets and brigandines for their torso, but are armed in a similar manner. Levies are given some basic training before going off to war, but the best levies become employees of the state retained full time. They have 30 Scronik dedicated to serve as war beasts as well as 60 chariots drawn by teams of two Nlosm from which generals command. Their government is a plutocratic republic where prominent land owners, master artisans and wealthy merchants can vote and run for election. Nlosm religion is mostly ancestor worship with a pantheon of eleven deities who are either benevolent or can be appeased as well as one malevolent deity known as The Tyrant, who seeks to overthrow the other gods and reign over the universe for eternity and seeks to do this by manipulating others into becoming evil to undermine creation and build an army of evil souls to wage war in the afterlife.

The Zloisp are not particularly vulnerable to Terran diseases and have brought along no serious illness which can cross over to humans.

What happens?

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Elheru Aran
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Re: The Americas are colonized by the Zloisp in 1300 (RAR!)

Post by Elheru Aran »

Well. This is a bit out in left field.

Broadly: Any culture in the Americas in this point is pretty much at a Neolithic level of existence. There may be small-scale working of precious metals, but absolutely nothing as far as iron goes. As such, the Zloisp have a leg up.

As far as I know, the local cultures are all small-scale tribes living in broadly dispersed family and clan units. If they can manage to unite in sufficient quantities, they may be able to overwhelm the Zloisp with sheer numbers; 1,250 soldiers in total isn't very much.

Aaaaand that's about it. If the Zor-aliens (I'm damned if I have to spell that out again) can manage to form a sort of trade relationship with the natives, it's possible they could become accepted as a small nation-state of rather weird beings. If they're Iron Age level, and obviously advanced enough to travel in space (which begs the question of why they don't have more advanced weapons like guns and missiles, but whatever), they should be able to work on establishing an infrastructure which will gradually raise the area to a more advanced technological level.

Then measles and smallpox sweep the continent in about another century or two, and that's all she wrote. The Spanish or English (or French? I forget who got to Pittsburgh first) arrive and find a small country of very strange alien creatures amid otherwise desolate forests.
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Re: The Americas are colonized by the Zloisp in 1300 (RAR!)

Post by KraytKing »

First paragraph puts the numbers at 50,000 total, presumably multiple cities in the Pittsburgh area. It's unknown whether or not the Zloisp are hostile(Zor?), but even if they aren't, they will soon outgrow the natives in population. War will eventually break out over territory, but not for centuries. Once the Europeans show up, the Zloisp will most likely have taken over a considerable portion of North America, and, barring natural disaster, will have a population of over a million.

By then, they will have probably invented firearms, and will represent a considerable threat to the British who show up. An added benefit will be the likelihood that they remain a single society capable of bringing their entire force to bear against invaders, rather than a collection of frequently warring tribes. In combat, the Zloisp will have an an advantage in their inability to be flanked, but their weakness will be a serious handicap. They will most likely be able to withstand colonization attempts, and eventually evolve into a full-fledged nation. Unless, of course, there is some holy war against the aliens, which will eventually result in the extermination of the Zloisp.
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Re: The Americas are colonized by the Zloisp in 1300 (RAR!)

Post by Simon_Jester »

There were some quite large and heavily developed societies in the Mississippi valley, not that far from the aliens' arrival site. Neolithic technology, yes, but civilized in the same sense that the Mesopotamians were. Given enough time, I suspect the Native Americans would be able to adapt to the iron-using aliens, learn their technology, and function tolerably well. The alien colony is small enough that it simply will not spread out rapidly to a size likely to threaten the native cultures without disease being a factor.

If the aliens appeared in 1000 AD, I'd actually bet on this being a win for the natives- because the secret of iron working will have spread outward due to trade and interaction between the two societies, making them more resistant to conquest when Europeans show up. But with the aliens appearing in 1300 AD, there is less time for this process, so I'm not sure how far the art of blacksmithing will spread.
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Zor
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Re: The Americas are colonized by the Zloisp in 1300 (RAR!)

Post by Zor »

KraytKing wrote:. It's unknown whether or not the Zloisp are hostile(Zor?),
Not as a default. They'll generally be willing to trade with those when it's mutually beneficial and otherwise peacefully interact.

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