Paragon

The Paragons are a client species of the Xeelee. They hail from an earlier age of the universe, when space itself was hot enough to sustain liquid water.

Anatomy & Physiology
Paragons resemble large diamond clusters, perhaps a few meters across. Their overall body shape is that of an open sphere containing "a network of struts and planes." Beyond this, they are only vaguely described. However, it is known that they are symmetrical down a central axis, and that their bodies appear to be able to interlock.

Biochemistry
Paragons are carbon-based life forms, but of a drastically different sort than that found on Earth. They are made mostly of solid diamond, with small amounts of graphite, carbides, and nanotube filaments. Given their environment, Paragons presumably require water, carbon monoxide, and methane to survive, but the exact roles of these chemicals in their biochemistry are unknown.

Environment
The Paragons evolved around 10-15 million years after the Big Bang. At this time, the Big Bang's afterglow was far hotter than in the modern day, and the average temperature of space was about 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit). At this time, only the first generation of stars and planets had formed, and heavy elements did not yet exist.

The only planets that could form at this time were carbon worlds with graphite crusts and diamond cores. The atmospheres of these carbon planets consisted mostly of carbon monoxide, methane, and water vapor. Due to the universe' high background temperature at the time, the carbon planets could sustain oceans of liquid water without the need for a star's heat. It was on these worlds that the Paragons evolved.

By the time humans encountered the Paragons, these conditions were billions of years gone. The Paragons apparently only existed in habitats constructed for them by the Xeelee. The only such habitat known, the Cache, contained a miniature carbon planet suspended in a thin carbon monoxide-methane atmosphere. Near the planet's surface, the atmosphere was artificially thickened to over one bar, more to the Paragons' liking.

Technology
The Paragons rely heavily on technology from the Xeelee. They live in habitats made of Xeelee construction material and kept stable by other Xeelee technology. To travel in space, Paragons encase themselves in proton-thin bubbles of Xeelee construction material called "raindrops."

The Paragons' only known indigenous technology is a cannon built into the planet inside the Cache. The cannon fires 40-meter diamond spheres at immense speeds in order to devastate large targets, such as inhabited planets. These diamond spheres can be coated in Xeelee construction material in order to render them effectively invulnerable; this combination is misleadingly called a Probe.

History
The Paragons evolved on carbon planets in the early universe, between ten and fifteen million years after the Big Bang. The Xeelee presumably rescued them from almost certain extinction as the universe cooled. After this, the Paragons lived under the Xeelee's protection.

A group of Paragons accompanied the single Xeelee sent back in time to destroy humanity before the catastrophic human-Xeelee war began. The Paragons followed the Xeelee to Mercury, where it dug out the Cache from the planet's crust. From there, the Xeelee and the Paragons proceeded to the Sun, where the Xeelee placed the Cache inside the photosphere. This environment caused the Cache to grow dramatically and provided it with the mass-energy needed to construct an internal habitat for the Paragons. Once this was ready, the Paragons took up residence in the Cache and began to reproduce.

The Cache flew across the Solar System in an indeterminate spiral path before diverting to Mars. There, it fired three Probes at Mars, the Moon, and Earth. The projectiles were dubbed "Probes" out of a faint hope that the Xeelee and Paragons had peaceful intent, but this belief was shattered when the Probes actually hit. The Probes that hit Mars and the Moon did limited damage due to evacuation efforts, but the Earth Probe struck the Atlantic Ocean, causing a tsunami that killed millions of people.

After the Probe attacks, the Paragons aided the Xeelee in building more such weapons, primarily in the Asteroid Belt. These Probes were targeted at smaller inhabited bodies in the Solar System. Meanwhile, the Xeelee itself began to carry out attacks against inhabited planets, while the Paragons' role became more diminished.

Eventually, the Xeelee's campaign grew so destructive that mankind was forced to flee the Solar System altogether by teleporting Earth to the Oort Cloud. The Xeelee and the Paragons, not knowing where Earth had gone, continued to destroy the worlds of the Solar System for a time. The Xeelee finally left the Solar System for the center of the Milky Way, but the Paragons remained, still living in the Cache the Xeelee had built for them.