Tareeg

The Tareegs, nicknamed "Hammerheads" by Humans, are a sapient, spacefaring, belligerent and highly aggressive species.

Biology
Tareegs are aquatic creatures with rotund bodies reminiscent of a penguin, and heads like a hammerhead shark's. They have short legs, two sets of flippers, and a pair of sturdy arms with large hands. In spite of their hostility, their appearance has been described as "cute" and "almost comical" by Humans. As aquatic creatures, they require humidity to live, but are capable of waddling on land for as long as they remain moist.

Culture and society
Tareeg culture revolves around war and violence, as well as strict adherence to ritualistic ceremonies. Their religion is based on a universal struggle between land and water.

When on dry land, Tareegs wear special suits designed to keep them moist.

History
The origin of the Tareeg species is a mystery. Their recorded history goes back to only a few centuries and consists mostly of several wars fought in two oceanic planets of the same system, followed by a larger war between the two planets, and finally ending in an uneasy truce. Since neither planet was willing to admit the possibility that the other might be their species' homeworld, the two managed to unite their people in the belief that both were colonies of a glorious lost homeworld. When they developed interstellar travel, the Tareegs started searching for this hypothetical homeworld. To account for the fact that the homeworld had apparently abandoned its colonies and forgotten about them, the Tareegs also developed a legend about a hypothetical enemy race that attacked their forefathers. This belief helped them to direct their hostility against the first alien species they made contact with: Humans.

In reality, while the idea of the lost homeworld is indeed correct, it turns out that the Tareegs' homeworld, Cassa One, had long been destroyed by the Tareegs themselves and its remains now form the Cassa System asteroid belt. Following the reintroduction in their twin colony worlds of water that had been frozen in the Cassa belt, containing a biological weapon that remained inert for 12 centuries, the population of the Tareegs' colonies is believed to have been exterminated, and all that remains of the species is a group of about fifty prisoners captured by Humans.

Appearances

 * "Left Hand, Right Hand", by James H. Schmitz (1962)