It looks like a lot of people are going for the alien angle...
Anyways, I think the first draft of my OOB needs some vetting. I'm rather fond of the idea (if not the name), but I'm not sure how it well it would work, setting or gameplay wise:
Silencers
Long before humanity stood astride of the Galaxy, its imperial standard planted in the soil of hundreds of alien worlds, long before the species’ forebears were little more than wisps of amino acid and lipid adrift in a great, primordial sea, there was civilization. The keepers of this far nation were marvels of biology and evolution, the first to think, to converse, to love. Slowly, tentatively, they spread across their homeworld, and when it had been fully tamed by their will, they spread further, into the inviting stillness of the void. Explorers moved from star to star, and marveled at the wonders of rock and air they found upon each tiny globe of stone they passed. The Galaxy held an endless store of wonderment and bounty that could never be exhausted, and for a long while, the first thinkers were content. But there was something missing from their paradise. There were no other minds with which they could share their thoughts and feelings and experiences. Explorers searched long and hopefully, scouring each world for the barest traces of intellect, but their quest was in vain. Others constructed artificial minds with which to converse, but the products of their labors were too much like their creators, and the fascination that they brought did not last.
The only hope of new companionship that could be found was in the roiling waters of a few newly-cooled worlds scattered across space, where the seeds of life, different in nature but life nonetheless, fermented and grew. The thinkers took heart from this discovery, but they also knew that no minds would come of these bubbling pools for a very long time, an age even for their long lives. So it was decided: they would go to sleep. All the organs of their civilization, every devices and piece of art, every technology and thinking machine, everything that they had shaped or thought were carefully stowed in vaults beneath the surface of the more promising bears of new life. The thinkers bid their realm farewell and joined their possessions, their minds buzzing with expectation for the far tomorrow as they slipped into a unified slumber.
Entombed, they slept for the lifetime of worlds, oblivious to the life that flourished above them. Other sapient beings arose from seas and overgrown forests, and busied themselves with all the things that the first thinkers had once accomplished, unaware of what lay below their feet. So it went for many thousands of years.
And then, the sleepers awoke. As they perceived for the first time in eons, a new sensation burst into their minds, and they knew that their wish had been answered: thinking creatures of completely new form crowded space and the surfaces of the worlds beneath which they had slept. Their joy was great, but it turned swiftly to confusion, fear, and pain. The minds of these new beings did not simply speak to them, they screamed. All of their feelings and intents stabbed into them like poisoned barbs, scattering their thoughts and filling them anguish unlike they had ever felt.
Those on worlds where fewer of the other beings walked were able to retain some hold on their faculties, but those beneath the places were life and truly prospered were paralyzed by the constant, searing cacophony. Their far-flung comrades could feel the unending suffering of their fellows beyond even their own agony, and it filled them with emotion that few had felt since the earliest days of their being. The thinkers were peaceful beings, artists, adventures, and romantics, but they still held the capacity for rage, and it swept over them at the plight of their trapped kin. So compelled, those who could function through the endless pain reactivated their dormant machines and set to work, shaping them into weapons. There was only one way to end the pain.
The thinkers, who had for so long desired conversation and activity, desire now only silence. And they will stop at nothing to claim it.
Biology
Silencers are undoubtedly living beings, but they are quite unlike any organism of Terran origin. Rather than being fundamentally carbon-based, they are composed primarily of silicon, nitrogen, and zinc. These elements form a crystalline octahedron of varying dimensions, one to three meters in height. This central structure, which can range in color from virtual translucence to a pale green, is surrounded by a belt of tightly-intertwined fibers, usually dark gray. This hemisphere bears four long, rope-like growths tipped with a varying number of smaller “fingers”. Each of these growths is flexible and its digits are fully articulated, allowing individuals to move and interact with their environments.
Silencers lack organs in any traditional sense, and instead have three distinct “tissues” or crystalline composites that serve different roles. The first, Gateway tissue, covers the Silencer’s “fingers”, and can selectively absorbed mineral nutrients from the environment and excrete the little waste its consumption produces. The matter that constitutes their limbs, Niche tissue, can alter its rigidity, allowing for movement; it is also shot with microscopic channels which transport mineral nutrients and waste matter to and from Gateway tissue. Apex tissue makes up the central crystal, and functions as both a unitary sensory organ and an originator of the electrical pulses that constitute the beings’ neural systems. Silencers reproduce by “seeding” a nutrient-rich substrate with a self-replicating shard of their own Apex tissue.
Due to their make-up, individuals are far hardier than most biological forms of life. They require comparatively little chemical sustenance, do not breath, are immune to virtually all toxins, and can withstand all but the most extreme levels of radiation, gravity, heat, and cold (Silencers can function in hard vacuum indefinitely). They can live for tens of thousands of years, and only die of old age when their central crystal eventually depolarizes. Silencers are extremely strong and resistant to both pressure and blunt-force, but their exposed Apex tissue is prone to crack and shatter if subjected to an incision or point-impact. They are also slow and ungainly in higher-gravity environments, and often wear powered encounter shells when on typically-habitable worlds.
Despite their colloquial name, Silencers do not have any conception of hearing by its conventional definition, or of touch, taste, sight, or smell. Instead, they have three entirely distinct senses: telepathy, electrical perception, and “impression”. All Silencers are telepathic, and can communicate with each other in real-time over inter-planetary distances; lower scale perception, like general impressions of location and mental state, occur on a potentially trans-galactic scale. They are also able to perceive the thoughts of biological sapients, but they are generally unable to comprehend them. Instead, alien thoughts, especially those of nearby individuals, manifest themselves as disruptive and excruciating interference, distortion that cannot be blocked out by any means other than extreme distance.
Electrical perception allows Silencers to perceive electrical fields, currents, and potentials at range. Most individuals are able to detect electricity, like that produced within a human brain, at ranges of upwards of fifty kilometer, regardless of most intervening material. They also use this electrical affinity to interface with their technology; most Silencer vessels and facilities have one or more individuals at their heart, directly connected to the construct’s internal components, serving as a central coordinator. Silencers also can communicate though the direct exchange of electrical signals through their limbs, but this form of contact is less common than telepathy and seems to demonstrate affection between individuals.
The final mode of Silencer perception is “Impression”. Using some process unknown to Terran physical science, the beings are able to perceive the location, composition, and structure of matter without actually seeing or interacting with it in any conventional way. They “see” objects as masses of preons, the fundamental units of matter, and can identify these “bundles” in intense detail over extreme distances, nearly as far as they are able to sustain direct telepathic contact. It is postulated that Silencer vessels lack any conventional analogue of active scanning technology, and that individual pilots instead transfer sensory information directly to their ships. Silencers cannot, however, look “though” matter with Impression, and artificial gravity fields heavily distort their perception of objects. This suggests that Impression may have some basis in perception of gravity, but there is no direct evidence for this assertion.
Culture
Before they entered their species-wide hibernation more than a billion years ago, the Silencers boasted a utopian, post-scarcity civilization that spanned dozens of worlds. Due to their fundamentally telepathic nature, physical conflict was extremely uncommon and open warfare virtually unknown. Their social order was based upon pure, communal democracy, and oriented towards the welfare of every individual. However, the Silencers are not a hive-mind, and each individual has its own rich complement of experiences and preferences. With virtually no conflict in their lives, the sapients were able to devote themselves entirely to pursuits as diverse as exploration, philosophy, art, science, and literature. When it was decided to place the species into a deep sleep, each individual perceived the undertaking as an opportunity for an infinite number of new pursuits.
Silencers are intensely empathic creatures, and when those on remote worlds felt the pain of their comrades Coreward, their salvation immediately became the civilization’s first and only priority. Minds honed by millennia of constant reflection, the Silencers were able to quickly adapt their technology towards the elimination of other sapient beings and formulate stratagems for deploying them. The ancients recognize that their new targets are living, thinking beings, but the degree of suffering their very existence inflicts upon Silencer minds and the gulf between their perceptions of the Galaxy have ensured that communication and negotiation are more or less infeasible. The Silencers are not malevolent, but their yearning for quiet has made them pragmatic and ruthless.
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Basically, they would play as follows: Several fringe colonies (potentially those belonging to one or more players) would have their populations abruptly erased by invaders from within, and vaults within each world's surface would begin disgorging Silencer fleets. Their objective would then be to "liberate" every paralyzed vault scattered across the cosmos, many of them beneath the central worlds of major players, thus creating conflict. Rather than having a standard economy with producton centers, trade lanes, and conquest (I would accrue either a faction of the normal number of points per turn, or none at all), the Silencers would gain production points whenever they cleansed a world and uncovered its vault.
So, would this work, or am I better off constructing a more conventional power? I could go either way.
For my own lazyness I will re-use one of my previous nations, revamped.
