Lian

The Lians are a avian species native to the planet Liantac in the Uncharted Territories.

Biology
The Lians were descended from avian stock. Bipedal, they possessed vestigial plumage their body parts that on a human or Sebacean would be hair. Their arms were fairly long relative to their height, and legs were disproportionately short. Instead of a mouth and nose, Lians possessed beaks. While able annunciate, Lian had difficulty with words—B, F, M, and P.

History
Hundreds of cycles ago, the Lians evolved on a world that was an arid wasteland and a place with few natural resources. The Lians of the period had made only a few pitiful attempts at space travel. The species were considered by the other galactic powers of the time to be unworthy of being conquered. That impression though was until the establishment of the Casino and turning Liantac into a gambling planet. The Casino became a boon to the Lians, causing their civilization to create a thriving economy and trade with all the major nations.

All was well and good until a catastrophe occurred that resulted in the poisoning of Liantac’s bonosphere. Ironically the cause of the disaster was from gambling—specifically, two people who had played each other in Tadek. The loser—who owned the largest ship-repair facility on Liantac—wanted revenge on the winner, so he sabotaged the winner’s ship with larik particles. The intent was to stall the ship out, ruin the engine, and force the winner to pay an exorbitant repair fee to the loser to fix it.

Unfortunately, larik particles were organic, and reproduced at “great rate when taken out of stasis. As a result, the minute amount of particles that the loser started with continued to replicate and, rather than simply stall the engine, blew up the ship. Worse, the ship had been in the bonosphere, right in the jet stream—within seventy-five arns, the particles had completely encircled Liantac.

The atmospheric catastrophe prevented ships from entering Liantac’s orbit. And since the accident Liantac has been cut off from the greater Galaxy for thirty cycles. Later it was discovered that the larik particles only prevented inorganic propulsion systems from functioning. The solution at the time were to use organic vessels as a substitute form of interstellar transport to and from Liantac so that commerce could resume.

By the year 1999, the Lians managed to develop techno-organic vessels that were unaffected by the particles, allowing them to resume ferrying offworlders to their planet. Travel no longer a restriction Liantac’s tourism resumed, bringing back a flow of gamblers and vacationers.

However the economy of the Lians was still staggering back into recovery. Despite the new ferries providing transport to their visitors, the techno-organic technology still wasn’t perfected as the vessels were inefficient as they used obscene amounts of fuel, and broken down very quickly.

Netoros, junior member of the Consortium seeking to bring her world’s economy out of its free fall and to consolidate her power over the Consortium sought to reach an agreement with the Peacekeepers. Through the Peacekeepers that frequented Liantac, Netoros became aware that a high ranking Peacekeeper named Scorpius was interested in the capture of an escape Leviathan and its crew. Taking a gamble, Netoros dispatcher a subordinate into the Uncharted Territories to search and lure the crew to Liantac. Her gamble paid off and Netoros used her influence to cheat Dominar Rygel XI to incur a massive financial debt at her game house. Having a legal right to detain them, Netoros impounded their Leviathan, Moya. To pay her back the debt, the Lian offered the crew several tasks to complete. For John Crichton he was given the task to devise a method for ships to function in spite of the larik particles. Ka D’Argo was assigned to act as a bodyguard for her star singer Licit. And Zhaan to assist a fellow Consortium member Garess in cataloguing his collection of plants.

However the crew suspecting some sort of foul play, pieced together that the Lian had lured them to Liantac on purpose and had no intention of releasing them from their debt. After learning from an ex-Peacekeeper Tech that the Peacekeepers were about to send someone to Liantac, the crew sensed a plot afoot.

By accident a damaged vessel that was transporting a Peacekeeper negotiator crashed into Moya’s landing bay. Both the pilot and passenger died, leaving Aeryn Sun the role in impersonating the negotiator to find out Netoros’s plan. Playing her role, Aeryn learned that Netoros sought the support of the Sebacean military organization to invest into Liantac. In exchange for 15% of tge Lians wealth, the Peacekeepers would receive the plans for the techno-organic vessels and hopefully improve on their design to make them more efficient and provide travel to Liantac. For incentive, Netoros offered the Peacekeepers custody of John Crichton. As it turned out the Lian wanted the help of the Peacekeepers in an eventual bid to buy out the rest of the Consortium. Her miscellaneous tasks that she gave to the Moya crew were all part of an intricate ploy to not only keep them occupied but also to profit her in some way. Her assignment as Ka D’Argo to be Licit bodyguard was to appease the vain singer, even providing a vengeful Delvian stalker to warrant his paranoid fears. For Zhaan, she was expected to be a gift to Garess due to his obsession for adding exotic plants to his collection.

After Arryn learned all this, she discreetly met Rygel and Crichton to inform them of what she learned. As it so happened Rygel expected something like this and made a move to ally with Netoros’s rival Ornara, after impressing her of his gaming skills. Ornara having been observing the debt incurred by the Dominar knew that the Hynerian had been cheated in a fair game was inclined to assist due to her disgust with her peer’s breach in conduct. She was incentivize to aid them when Crichton provided designs for his exhaust system of his ship that would allow a more efficient way to transport tourists to Liantac. In return Ornara agreed to pay off Rygel’s debt. In addition she agreed to allow Liantac be a safe haven for the crew and funnel any new information of the Peacekeepers to them.

Things turned worse for Netoros when Zhaan escaped Garess after he tried to put her in his plant collection. Taking refuge me with D’Argo, he took her to Security to make a statement who then brought charges to Garess. Netoros complicit with her colleagues attempt at kidnapping was also charged and her reputation slander when news was leaked to the media.

Just when things on Liantac were safe, the Moya crew discovered that the dead Peacekeeper negotiator had brought a bomb capable of destroying a planet as insurance in the event of failed negotiations with Netoros. To save the planet and it’s people Arryn had to go to the ex-Peacekeeper tech to disarm it. Once the bomb was disarmed Ornara arranged for that witnessed to Aeryn’s impersonation of the Peacekeeper agent were erased.

Cycles later Crichton visited Liantac once again with Chiana in search for a bountyhunter named Ronan. Ronan was working for an unknown entity who was keen on capture his son Deke. In order to learn for the identity of Ronan’s Crichton allowed Chiana to seduce him whilst Crichton readied to ambush him. However before he could do so, he was intercepted by Liantac Security who arrested him. It turned out that Security was interested in Ronan as well as he was suspected him killing one of the Casino’s sex workers. Determined to bring Justice for their employe and knowing Crichton’s reputation the Lians offered to work with them in order to capture the bountyhunter.

Culture
Lian society revolves around the Casino, providing entertainment and selling their services to Liantac’s visitors.

Wealth and power gained hereditarily was unheard of in Lian society. This was due Lian families averaging about a dozen offspring, and they had no tradition of primogeniture. After the parents died, their holdings tended to be distributed evenly among all the children. Thus members in their society could not inherit great wealth and prestige but must build themselves up from the foundation.

Lians also retained from their avian ancestors the habit of eating and drinking by leaning down into a stationary source rather than bringing the food and drink to their mouths.

The Consortium of Liantac was the ruling body of Liantac, consisting of seven leading business owners. “In order to become part of the Consortium, you must personally own at least ten per cent of the Casino—and at least half of it must be profitable.

While mostly seen as a species full of avarice and solely focused on attracting clients and entertaining, there were Lians that were invested in other facets such as law enforcement.

Members of Lian law enforcement were noted to be adamant on preserving Justice even willing to go against members of the Consortium to pursue it. Additionally the Liantac police enforcers prided themselves of protecting their charges and constituents, willing to purse suspects offworld not just for their world’s reputation but for the victims.

Terminology

 * retri: Coinage used as currency.
 * Thori: Deity. Name and beak is used in exclamation of anger, surprise, or impatience.