Vecuuri

The Vecuuri (vek-urr-ree) are a race of sapient molluscs from the swamp planet Vecaan (vek-khan). They are one of the oldest races in the Milky Way Galaxy, emerging about the same time as the Kaeolians in the Triangulum Galaxy and living to see both the beginning and end of the First Cluster War.

Biology
Though they are technically molluscs, millennia of genetic engineering and augmentation have made Vecuuri physiology extremely complex. They stand about 9 ft (2.7432 m) tall, but are actually 15 ft (4.572 m) long in total. Their bodies are slug-like in shape but insect-like in appearance, having a pale purple exoskeleton that constantly excretes a thick slime that keeps them lubricated. Inside of this exoskeleton is a soft endoskeleton that contains all of the Vecuuri's organs, which are suspended in a gelatinous substance that makes up most of their body. The Vecuuri have no less than 20 small appendages that are placed along the length of their entire body, each ending in a single black claw. In a similar fashion to Syluxians, Vecuuri have evolved to be most comfortable crawling like a centipede, using their several small, highly maneuverable claws to scuttle along the ground. They have since genetically modified themselves to have much larger, less maneuverable claws on the bottom half of their bodies, while leaving their finely-tuned, maneuverable claws on the top half of their bodies. This allows them to manipulate and grasp objects with their upper appendages, and move using only their lower ones, allowing them to "stand" and move using only half of their entire body. Their heads are about as wide as the rest of their body, but aren't very long, containing little more than an array of 4 large black eyes and a mouth lined with long tentacles, which the Vecuuri use to grab and manipulate their food. They are a herbivorous race, accustomed to picking fruit and leaves off of low-lying flora found in the swamps of their homeworld.

A striking feature of the Vecuuri is their method of reproduction. The Vecuuri are a sexually reproducing species, though there is little distinction between their males and females aside from reproductive organs, which are located near the front of a Vecuuri's body towards the left and right sides of their exoskeleton. Male Vecuuri have two small sacs filled with Vecuuri spermatozoa, while females have two similar sacs containing unfertilized eggs. These sacs are located in the same general region in both sexes, so a "standing" male Vecuuri's sacs will usually be parallel to a female Vecuuri's sacs. Reproduction occurs when excessive friction is applied to a male Vecuuri's sacs, which excites the sperm cells within and increases the temperature of the sacs. This friction is usually generated when the female Vecuuri rubs her sacs against the male's, thus triggering this effect. When the sperm cells have been excited enough, they will burst forth from the male Vecuuri's sacs and latch onto anything nearby, thanks to the sticky enzymes they are enveloped in. These enzymes also excrete a special acid that allows the sperm to burrow into the sacs of a Vecuuri female and fertilize the eggs within. After the eggs are fertilized, they will gradually grow inside of the female's sacs until one of two things happens. If the eggs are left to be, they will eventually expand enough to burst from the sacs of the female on their own accord, or the female can choose to tear open her own sacs with her claws once the eggs have grown enough. In either situation, the eggs must leave the female's body so that they can hatch in open air. Having their reproductive sacs ruptured is an extremely painful process for both male and female Vecuuri, and often, if females neglect to rupture their own sacs to release their eggs, they die when the eggs eventually grow enough to burst out of their sacs. As a result of this, Vecuuri are very hesitant to reproduce, and usually avoid it as much as they can. This has caused their population to always remain considerably low, even despite the tremendous age of their species. A Vecuuri's reproductive sacs will also never grow back after being ruptured, limiting the amount of children a single Vecuuri can have.

Homeworld
Vecaan is a small but turbulent planet, covered in thick swamps and cursed with a perpetually humid climate. Thanks to copious comet strikes in its early stages of development, Vecaan possesses vastly more water than many other life-sustaining planets, a trait that carefully shaped its ecology. Almost all lifeforms on Vecaan are amphibious, aside from a few species of avians and insects. This makes the Vecuuri an oddity on their own planet as they are one of the only non-amphibious land-based organisms that live on it. The dissimilarities stop there, however, as otherwise, the Vecuuri are just as slimy and bizarre as any other creature on their homeworld.

In compliance with their patient and understanding nature, the Vecuuri have always been very careful with the environment of their homeworld. Through careful industrialization and plentiful usage of renewable energy, the Vecuuri never made much of a harmful environmental impact on their planet, keeping its ecology intact. After they achieved spaceflight and began colonizing other worlds, the Vecuuri speckled their homeworld with amazing temples and palaces commemorating their history and the Vecuuri royal family. These structures were left to stand even after they assimilated into the Coalition of Intelligent Organisms, making the planet a heritage world for the entire Vecuuri species. The royal family continued to live there afterwards, projecting their influence over the rest of the Coalition by selecting the Vecuuri that would go to Earth to become part of the Founder Council.

Psychology
The Vecuuri are an ancient and venerable species, almost as old as the Kaeolians. Their immense lifespans and harmful reproduction techniques have made the Vecuuri wise, patient and accepting. Their society is focused around coexistence with nature and slow, sedentary lifestyles. Even though they created a unified civilization rather quickly after their rise to sapience, they still chose to remain on their homeworld for thousands of years, philosophizing and pondering the universe as opposed to going out and conquering it. The Kaeolian Empire and Zetylian Hegemony, however, had other plans. The Vecuuri were placed right in the middle of the First Cluster War, much to their dismay. When the war began, the Vecuuri had already started to do a small amount of expansion outside of their home star system. It took a while for the war to reach them, but when it did, it hit hard. Battles of unimaginable proportions between Zetylian and Kaeolian war fleets made space travel dangerous and difficult, and many Vecuuri colonies were either abandoned due to this or completely destroyed by automated Kaeolian Sweeper Fleets. The fragile interstellar empire the Vecuuri had worked hard to create was left in ruins by the end of the war. Their populations had dropped considerably during the conflict, which made it almost impossible to rebuild. The Vecuuri went back to their sedentary ways for the next 200,000 years or so, trying their best to clean up after the devastation. Things started to look up for them when a mysterious spacecraft was encountered by a deep-space Vecuuri satellite, which led to their diplomacy with the Humans and the subsequent creation of the Coalition of Intelligent Organisms.

After forming the Coalition, the Vecuuri assumed a sort of paternal role in guiding the impulsive (but occasionally ingenious) Humans. They tried to steer the Coalition more towards becoming a benevolent and inclusive institution, putting in policies that guaranteed certain rights to alien species and setting up the foundations for the early Coalition's government system. As bureacracy and corporate enterprises started to leak into the Coalition political and cultural dynamic, however, their message became less and less pronounced, fading out just so the ultra-nationalistic zeal of the newer Coalition could emerge. The Vecuuri became background characters to the Human leaders of the Coalition, a position they were in no way uncomfortable with considering their overall mentalities.