Ceph

"That's right, the owners are back! And not much liking what they found festering behind the fridge..."

- Jack Hargreeve

The Ceph are a technologically advanced race from the Crysis Universe.

Physiology
Cephs are Cephalopod-like in form (hence thier name), with three tentacles protruding from their back (though only in the Human-derived strain. The pure Ceph have five coming from their torso). They also have many red eyes.

The original Ceph have a less squid like appearance, with actual arms (where as the human strain rely on mechanical ones) and can only survive in sub zero temperatures.

Pure strain Ceph are about 2 metres long and blue/purple in colour.

Human strain Ceph vary in height depending on function, but are all pink in colour or red if they are commanders;

Stalker

about 5.6 tall

Grunt

over 6 feet tall

Commander

over 6 feet tall

Ceph Heavy

12 feet or taller

History
The Ceph were first encounterd at the Tunguska Event by Jack Hargreeve and Carl Ernst Rach. This encounter apparently lead to the infamous explosion there, and it also lead to the two men taking Ceph technology.

The Ceph apparently had colonized earth long before the evolution of humans.

In the year 2024AD, an ancient bio weapon of Ceph origin began infecting the populace of Manhattan, New York. The humans, regarding it as nothing more than a virus, treated it with antibiotics (note that antibiotics do not work against viruses, possible plot oversight), but this merely slowed down the cellular breakdown in the infected. It transpired that the virus melted those it infected down into a kind of base tissue in order to build combat forms such as the stalkers.