The Olyix are a highly religious alien race whose culture revolves around a journey to the end of time to unite with God. They are extremely technologically advanced and seem to dominate the Milky Way.
Description[]
The Olyix's most notable trait is that each individual mind inhabits five bodies at once. Each Olyix body forms part of a "quint," whose brains are quantum-entangled with each other. All five bodies think as one being, regardless of the distance between them. It is unclear if this evolved naturally or if the Olyix engineered this trait into themselves.
Anatomy and Physiology[]
An Olyix body is based on five-fold symmetry. The body is roughly oval-shaped, with five stumpy legs emerging from the bottom. A fleshy "skirt" around the midsection can be used to form tentacles for manipulating objects. The head, with a single golden eye, emerges from the top of the body. The skin is translucent and the tissues within are mostly purplish. Olyix bodies are no taller than humans, but they are much heavier, averaging 150 kilograms (330 lbs).
Reproduction & Life Cycle[]
Olyix bodies are extremely long-lived, but not quite immortal. When bodies die, they are replaced with a new one grown by the Olyix's supervising onemind. Olyix quints are not dependent on any one body and thus are effectively immortal unless all five bodies are killed before any can be replaced. Because of this immortality, no new Olyix individuals have come into being for millennia - there simply is no need.
Society[]
Beliefs[]
The Olyix believe that the universe is in a cycle of death and rebirth. At the end of the current universe, all beings will coalesce into the God at the End of Time. The Olyix believe that this event is billions of years in the future, yet each Olyix hopes to live and travel until they meet the God and join with it.
The Olyix's religion, however, is much more sinister than they let on. While they present themselves as peaceful nomads, they actually wish to take every other sapient being in the universe with them, by force if necessary. Members of species conquered by the Olyix are "cocooned" using advanced biotechnology, leaving them nearly immortal but effectively comatose. The Olyix are highly reluctant to actually kill anyone during these conquests, but they will do so without mercy if they feel that they must.
The Olyix's religion derives from a tachyon message purportedly sent from the God at the End of Time, instructing them to gather up all the life in the universe and bring it to the God when the universe ends. The Olyix received this message 2.5 million years ago and follow it without question. In fact, while the message is indeed from the future, it is not actually from the end of time - the true nature and motives of the sender remain unknown.
Social Structure[]
Olyix quints, the most basic form of the species, sit at the bottom of the Olyix hierarchy. An Olyix quint that distinguishes itself can be promoted to a onemind, a biological computer that controls an Olyix ship and its crew. There is a hierarchy among oneminds as well - very generally, the ranks ascend from transport ship, to Deliverance ship, to Resolution ship, to arkship, and to habitat. At the top of the hierarchy is the Olyix fullmind, a gestalt intelligence that controls the enclave and apparently consists of the arkships that have brought species there. The fullmind handles promotions to the rank of arkship.
Additionally, Olyix created inside the enclave outrank those from outside. An Olyix arkship is only admitted to the enclave when it has brought back a captive species, at which point it and its crew take up permanent residence there. There is no indication that "full" arkships are ever re-deployed.
Homeworld[]
The Olyix inhabit an area of warped space-time simply called the Olyix enclave. Time within the enclave flows far slower than it does outside - only weeks pass in the enclave while millennia go by outside. The Olyix created the enclave in order to reach the end of time faster, and it can be brought into sync with normal space-time when necessary. It has a single fixed entry point, a portal around 100 kilometers across.
The Olyix enclave was built in the Olyix's native solar system, which was originally a binary system with two large A-type main sequence stars. The enclave proper encompasses one of these stars and its system. The enclave is effectively a miniature universe 90 AUs (135 billion km) in diameter. At its center is the star powering it, which is encircled by huge rings that extract its energy. The only planet inside the enclave is a hot super-Jupiter orbiting at a distance of 7 AU (1.05 billion km). This planet has a ring of around 15,000 Olyix arkships, which collectively contain over 6,000 captive species. The Olyix in the enclave presumably live in this ring, as no other living space is shown. Since the enclave is a sealed space, the hot gas emitted by the central star cannot escape, and the enclave is filled with a colorful nebula of dust and gas.
The other star in the home system was repurposed into a "gateway star." Its planets were broken down into debris, which the Olyix use to build arkships. The gateway star is orbited by a ring that uses the star's energy to power a huge network of wormholes, which each lead to a different sensor station system.
The enclave system lies about 50,000 light-years from Sol, on the far side of the galactic core. It is much nearer to the galactic core than Sol, and the galactic core is much more visible in the sky.
Technology[]
Olyix technology is highly advanced, much more so than that of the humans they encounter. They are a Kardashev Type II civilization - they dominate the galaxy and can harness the energy of whole stars.
Olyix use fusion and antimatter for simpler power sources, but can use "gravitonic drives" when more power or speed is required. These drives presumably use negative energy.
Most Olyix weapons are fusion or antimatter explosives. Their spacecraft wield gamma-ray lasers or negative energy beams that can collapse targets into singularities. For anti-personnel weapons, Olyix use either lasers or a gun that projects a halo of ultra-thin, razor-sharp wire.
Biotechnology[]
Olyix are masters of biotechnology, using it to modify their own bodies and that of others. They have extensively modified themselves, all but halting their aging and removing their ability to feel pain. An Olyix quint can be promoted to the rank of onemind, a single being that is integrated into a ship or habitat. The Olyix also create non-sentient servitor creatures in place of robots.
Olyix biotechnology centers around devices called Kcells. Kcells are artificial cells that can be integrated into virtually any organism. Kcells are always under Olyix control, and Kcell implants can be remotely activated to "cocoon" non-Olyix users. Kcells can even be used to place an Olyix brain inside a human body, creating a loyal infiltrator whose discoveries are instantly conveyed to the rest of its quint. The Olyix usually trick target species into freely accepting Kcells, but in wartime they use specialized robots called capturesnakes to inject victims with Kcells.
Spacecraft[]
The Olyix use a variety of spacecraft, ranging from small transport ships to gigantic arkships. Their warships are huge, heavily-armed vessels which come in one of two classes - Deliverance-class and Resolution-class. Deliverance ships are manta-shaped warships around 800 meters across, armed with powerful lasers and missiles. Resolution ships are much larger and more powerful, and bear gravity-based weapons in addition to more conventional arms.
The largest Olyix ships are the arkships, gigantic vessels made out of the remains of the Olyix home system's planets. Most arkships resemble huge cylindrical asteroids around 45 kilometers long. They use huge antimatter-based engines to travel on interstellar journeys, posing as peaceful nomads and ingratiating themselves with a target civilization before launching a surprise attack. Each Olyix arkship contains a wormhole leading to an Olyix sensor station, through which it can deploy a seemingly limitless fleet of ships and weapons.