The Vlaximi are a species from the planet Vlax.
Biology[]
The Vlaximi are a mammalian humanoid species. With skin that was grayish and was actually patterned, like a tabby cat, but from a distance they tend to look gray in some light, tan in others. They were impressively tall beings, having the height of six feet. Physically males were similar enough to human males. Their faces were human-like, but distinctive, with eyes that turned upward at the corner, and sharply outlined lips.
Their biology is similar to humanity’s in that they could catch human viruses that can cause diarrhea and flu without proper immunity.
While Vlaximi utilized space vessels, to travel great distances between worlds, these extreme distances could only be traversed by Vlaximi, who could teleport. There were so many rules about how teleportation worked and some members of the species only knew enough focused specialized knowledge to make it work, after going through many years of training.
Oddly they possessed a form of personal shields, whether it is natural or artificial is debatable, though anything close range like a bullet that comes in contact with their barrier is disintegrated, leaving a Vlaximi protected and unharmed.
History[]
The Vlaximi evolved on the planet Vlax, a similar world to Earth, though one where the dinosaurs never went extinct.
In the 2020s a group of twenty male Vlaximi stumbled upon Earth on a mission to claim new worlds for their galactic empire. After learning a mess of languages which they convoluted into a vernacular headache, the Vlaximi under the assumption that humans sold human females like snacks, a misunderstanding of the illicit human trafficking business decided to acquire several human females for their pleasure as well as medical purposes.
The located an underground brothel to acquire the females. The transaction was peaceful at first, despite the human managers not really understanding their jargon the Vlaximi had sufficient funds to purchase their sex slaves. However after the men managing the brothel shot at them with a gun, the aliens responded by vaporizing the entire brothel and taking what they wanted.
Besides using the females for sex, they wanted their bacteria, immunities, languages, so they could be more efficient in cooperative interaction with humanity in the future.
Immediately after they made their presence known in the United States, the Vlaximi and their sex partners became instant celebrities. The Vlaximi offered humanity new technologies and industries from the stars. The government eager to profit from an exchange welcomed the aliens with open arms. To show the humans that they were willing to accept some of their customs and even acquire citizenship, they married their human females, broadcasting it to the Internet. This act was of course just business as they needed citizenship to invest their corporate interests on Earth and to negotiate with the various human governments for access to their technology.
The alien though made it no secret how they viewed humanity and their ways in contempt. Furthermore they flaunted their newly established wealth and privilege. They also showed a total disregard to concern for their well being, revealing to the public that they were virtually immune to human weaponry.
The twenty Vlaximi also even killed a public relations agent in public though it was argued it was self-defense due to veiled insults by the woman. No charges were presented to the aliens as the United States did not want to rile the aliens and risk losing their lucrative deals with them. To appease the public, the Vlaximi destroyed their own ship to alleviate their fears and to show that they were willing to strand themselves to become law-abiding citizens, As the Vlaximi continued to build the infrastructure needed to build their technology.
However the Vlaximi revealed their true colors when they ruthlessly slaughtered thousands of people at a music festival, acting on a perceived threat to one of their human pets. The US military was then dispatched, but found themselves outmatched by the teleporting abilities and vaporizing powers of the Vlaximi. The Vlaximi then proceeded to teleport around the globe to destroy the military organizations on the planet. As part of the next phase of their plans to totally conquer Earth, having skipped the war with their advanced technology, they introduced a computer virus that destroyed all human languages, replacing it with Vlaximix. They even went further to subsume human culture with their own by destroying all written material.
Culture[]
Vlaximi culture can be considered passive aggressive or unfair and mean-spirited. Every Vlaximi is ruthless and competitive. They can play nice when it amuses them, or when they want something. But are willing to vaporize people if they’re in their way. They were terrible at being tough, as they appeared friendly, sentimental and open about their emotions.
So far base on their use of language, Vlaximi appears patriarchal. The Vlaximi had very strong opinions on appropriate subjects to be taught to women.
Vlaximi music was said to be Bollywood crossed with Gregorian chants, which could be described to humans to be just bad taste. They had sitcoms which mostly composed of dumb, physical humor, like the Three Stooges, with more fart jokes.
Vlaximi believed the basic elements of organic life came to their planet from space. They view the galaxy rich with life-bearing worlds, enough of them populated with bipedal mammals to suggest a shared origin even further away.
Vlaximi society is focused on "exploring" space or what could be more accurately described as "conquering." They invade other planets for their resources though do so in a way that the populace never suspects. They do so in the form of a targeted marketing campaign, where they establish themselves as liberators to a world. If that fails though they are willing to use their superior technology to erase all opposition.
The Vlaximi obsession on plundering the galaxy is due to the assumption it was only a matter of time before someone else figured out how to reverse-engineer their teleport machines, at which point they would lose their competitive edge. Until that happened, they were determined to dominate everything they could reach.
The species were highly sexual, though male Vlaximi lacked the intense wanting of human males, as they are more practical, taking this attitude to the stars and motivated by greed than lust, wanting to drain every little bit off but not dominate it.
Vlaximi fashion was somewhat gaudy, appearing something out of a music video or entertainers.
Social Class[]
In Vlaximi society social class was important. Firstborns in a family was a position of prestige, and were eligible for all kinds of privileges such as free college and better jobs. This was because it was important for firstborns to bring honor to their household. In addition they got the best wives as well.
For Vlaximi females they would rather be single and independent, moving from one lover to the next. The ones willing to settle into the life of a faithful mother would rather be the side chick of a firstborn than the wife of someone lower. Firstborns married girls who were beautiful, accomplished, and rich. The aspiring dream for couples was to have a life of designer dresses and gourmet food. Even firstborns from humble families got corporate sponsorship.
Technically second-borns can ascend to status of firstborns if the latter expires due to accidental death. Though there was stigma associated with those who inherited their status from the deceased.
Language[]
The Vlaximi come from a culture where there are no distinctive dialects, there entire species speak only one language which the species boasts to be perfected. The idea other races developing multiple languages within their culture is a foreign concept that they do not understand nor tolerate.
Their native language is Vlaximix, a truly alien language, with a lot of quirks. It assigns genders depending on the activity. For example if one was feeding a baby she would be a she, and if he was lifting heavy boxes, he was a he. A lot of the vernacular was gender assigned. Hence a lot of Vlaximi terms used by females are related to servility and submission, cleaning and cooking.
Vlaximix was an incredibly precise language for describing physical things moving through space. But was an infuriatingly abstract language when discussing things like emotions and relationships. One can say that Vlaximix is a language for coordination. For working together to attack some target, to divert some resource, to bring down a threat. The language has lots of swift, succinct ways to say things like “half of us head forward while the other half surrounds from behind.” Vlaximix, was a language that forced users to notice subtleties, which is expected from the Vlaximi, a people well familiar with space, and are layered with emotional correlations, like “I’m feeling up-and-to-the-left about that,” or “he seemed a little downward-diagonal to me.” In an Earthling’s opinion Vlaximix would be a great language for football coaches and videogamers. But like any language, Vlaximix had structure – verbs and nouns and adjectives, and rules about tenses and word order.
Vlaximix is an old language having been around for many centuries, absorbing many smaller languages over the years, and is spoken across incomprehensibly wide swaths of space. It is said that billions of sentient beings speak it and countless novels, plays, poems, and songs have been composed in it. The Vlaximi who developed Vlaximix are arrogant about their language, expecting everyone to learn it, but they have no idea how to teach it, since they all learned it at home.
The Vlaximi word for sleep was closely linked with time. To Vlaximi it was literally referred as "the time period during which we lie there dreaming" rather than the actual act of lying there dreaming.
The species had a hard time even understanding the concept of multiple languages. Vlaximi civilization was old, and their language had hardcore rules that didn’t allow for variation over time or distance. Where English from over a hundred years ago will contain lots of archaic words, Vlaximix in contrast doesn’t work that way at all. Apparently Vlaximix contains all the slang and nicknames and idiom the Vlaximi ever needed.
There aren’t a lot of dirty words in Vlaximix but there’s a relaxed, informal way of talking where basically every word is a dirty word, or will be received that way. There’s also an ultra-formal, ass-kissing version that one use at ceremonies.
Despite many Vlaximi ships leaving the homeworld and conquering other worlds, none of the disparate Vlaximi colonies have ever developed their own unique dialects. If so they would be viewed as anarchists for their use of unconventional words, and if such a thing happened it would lead to a complete breakdown of Vlaximi society.
Culinary[]
Vlaximi food is a mixed bag but is found to be consumable for human digestive tracts. It included amplama, savory turnovers with crispy-fried crust, and the hollowed-out cylindrical root vegetable stuffed with spicy cream cheese. Black noodles, edible mold, lumpy bread full of spicy nodules that pop in the mouth like grapes.
Some foodstuffs include a meat animal called an okori.
Technology[]
Vlaximi were highly into dental care, which they employed robots to restructure their teeth. Rather than extract broken teeth, the robot pulverized them into fine dust and vacuumed out the sockets which were filled with a pleasant-tasting good that dried into a solid plug which was gradually absorbed into the healing tissue.
Recreation[]
Most of their sitcoms and movies had a plot revolving around miscommunication. According to the humble opinion of an amateur interpreter, one could learn Vlaximi a lot faster if they’d studied Vlaximi pop songs and soap operas.
Human Interaction[]
In a misunderstanding of human languages, they developed a language they thought was “Earthish,” which they used when initially interacting with humans. In this bastardized person of human languages words for counting were French, basic socializing was in Spanish, German for scientific terms, and English was limited to tough guy quips from movies and music. In effect It was all one gigantic Creole, most of the planet’s top twenty languages mixed together in a convoluted web that made Spanglish look simple.
While humans were sufficiently advanced in technology and language, as well as compatible enough for sexual intercourse, Vlaximi saw them as intelligent animals that were primitive and amusing. Even Vlaximi who took human women as sexual partners really saw them as pets rather than equals.
Terminology[]
- Hawankh Padudi: A major hit song on Vlax. And depending on how the lyrics are interpreted, it can be a song about falling in love, or about wishing a current politician was more like a different one, or a story about several minutes of hardcore passionate sex, or a complaint about an overly dramatic woman.
Source[]
- Star Language by Charon Dunn (2023)