GikDaa Concept Sketch
The GikDaa are, to human eyes, a species of childlike, hyperactive, genius problem solvers. They have an innate understanding of how the physical world operates and they tend to find the most efficient possible processes for any given problem.
The NorAellians describe them as infinitely fascinated by technology and never content until they could understand not just the 'how' of something, but the 'why'. These two traits often lead to confusion when a GikDaa will rewire or reorganize something in a human space simply because, to them, their way is far more efficient, even if this efficiency makes little to no sense to those who would need to utilize it.
¶ History
The history of the GikDaa is, depending on who you talk to, either a cautionary tale about underestimating the quiet ones or the single most terrifying thing that has ever happened in known space. Both readings are correct.
¶ Origins
The commonly accepted history is straightforward: the GikDaa evolved alongside the NorAellians on NorAel, a pair of sentient species that developed in parallel. The GikDaa were the dominant sentient species when the NorAellians were still pack hunters, and they shared information freely as the NorAellians grew into civilization builders. It's a tidy story, and it's the one you'll find in most textbooks.
¶ Behind the Scenes
The NorAellians didn't evolve on NorAel — they arrived from elsewhere and found the GikDaa already living in warrens beneath the surface. The GikDaa were there first.
Either way, what everyone agrees on is what came next. The NorAellians, with their cities and their ships and their insatiable appetite for knowledge, looked at the GikDaa and saw clever little creatures who collected shiny things and learned words. Cute. Harmless. Endearing, even — they called them "Little Cousins" and meant it with genuine affection.
They were not paying close enough attention.
¶ The Quiet Study
For generations, the GikDaa did what GikDaa do: they touched things, took them apart, and figured out how they worked. The NorAellians were happy to share technology — it's what they do — and the GikDaa were happy to receive it. What the NorAellians didn't realize was that the GikDaa weren't just tinkering. They were studying. Everything. Including NorAellian defense systems that were supposed to be secret.
The GikDaa's Focus-enhanced comprehension, their instinctive need to understand the why of things, meant that every piece of technology they touched gave up its secrets. The NorAellians saw a species that rewired things into configurations that made no sense. The GikDaa saw a species that hadn't optimized anything and desperately needed help.
They were building something. Nobody asked what.
¶ The Sooni-NorAellian War
When the Sooni moved against the NorAellians — part of their broader campaign to isolate Humanity — the NorAellians expected a manageable conflict. They were wrong. The Sooni escalated far beyond what anyone anticipated, and the NorAellians found themselves beaten back, system by system, until they were defending NorAel itself.
On the eve of what was expected to be the final battle, Sooni and Grey ships began to freeze. Not disabled — frozen. Locked in time. Then they began to vanish, dismantled at the atomic level. Satellites appeared where the ships had been, replicating themselves, spreading outward in a wall of frozen space.
The NorAellians recognized the underlying technology. It was theirs — their most secret defense systems, from installations that were supposed to be known only to the highest levels of NorAellian command. But it had been improved. Dramatically.
Then the warrens opened.
Across all of NorAel and her colonies, the ground split and great ships rose from underground — ships nobody knew existed, built by a species everyone had written off as adorable tinkerers. Every GikDaa on every world stepped aboard.
Their message to the NorAellians was simple: "The Wall will protect you. We are going to fight them where they live. You have protected us for generations — now it is our turn. Thank you."
Every last GikDaa left.
¶ The Wall
What the GikDaa left behind was the Wall — a defense network that freezes ships in time. It expanded outward from NorAel to encompass the NorAellian core systems and three main colonies, all places the GikDaa had once lived. It is self-replicating: targeted ships are dismantled at the atomic level, their matter recycled into fuel and drones that make the Wall stronger. It can target specific genetic material at any resolution.
The NorAellians eventually learned to operate it — allowing approved traffic through while intercepting anything carrying Sooni or Grey biological material. The Sooni believe the Wall is impenetrable. It isn't, quite. But the Sooni also fear the people who built it, and that fear has kept them from testing it too aggressively.
(See The Wall for details on its modern operation.)
¶ The Silence
The Sooni never returned to NorAellian space. Whether this was because of the Wall, or because of what the GikDaa were doing to them elsewhere, is a matter of speculation.
Centuries passed. The NorAellians waited. No word came.
¶ The Return
Eventually, a single ship came home. It carried a few thousand GikDaa — all that remained of a fleet that had carried every member of their species into the void.
They would not say much about what had happened. What they did share became the story known among the GikDaa as The Fallen Ones.
¶ The Fallen Ones
What remains of the GikDaa fleet out in the deep void is no longer GikDaa. The survivors say their people became something Other — not life as anyone would recognize it. The part of the Fallen Ones that remembers being GikDaa is the part that knows they cannot come home, because they are no longer what they were.
All GikDaa fear the day the Fallen Ones change their minds.
The Grey — who the GikDaa call the Nameless Ones — are said to be capable of communing with the Fallen Ones in the void, learning ancient GikDaa secrets in the process. This is an unsettling addition to a species that was already one of the most dangerous in the galaxy.
¶ The NorAellian Shame
The NorAellians describe what happened with the GikDaa as their greatest shame. This is widely misunderstood. Other races assume the NorAellians did something to the GikDaa — committed some atrocity they can't bring themselves to discuss.
The truth is simpler and, to the NorAellians, far worse: their Little Cousins threw themselves into the fire to save them, and the NorAellians couldn't stop it. They didn't cause the GikDaa's near-extinction. They allowed it. They were the older, stronger, more advanced race, and when it mattered most, a species they'd spent generations protecting turned around and protected them — at the cost of almost everything they were.
That's the shame. Not guilt for an act committed, but grief for an act they failed to prevent.
¶ Modern Day
The surviving GikDaa have been carefully repopulating since their return. They are considered critically endangered, and the NorAellians are fiercely protective of them. The GikDaa, for their part, seem largely unbothered by their own near-extinction — true to form, they are far more interested in what's happening now than in dwelling on what happened then.
They still touch everything. They still take things apart. And if they're building something new in those warrens, well.
Nobody's going to make the mistake of not asking twice.
¶ Biology
GikDaa are a near-mammal species similar to marsupials. They are small, mostly hairless, bipedal, and vaguely humanoid. They are almost universally polyglots and can pick up new languages with ease. Of all of the known species, the GikDaa have the shortest lifespans. Even with modern medical advancements, their average lifespan is barely 70 years.
Owing to their sub-terrainian evolution, GikDaa have extremely poor eyesight. Their scent, sound, and - maybe most importantly - touch senses developed to compensate. This has resulted in their elongated snouts, ears, and fingers. As well, they have developed microscopinc suckers along their fingers and palms. These structures serve multiple purposes: they are touch organs adding to the sensativity of their sense of touch, they provide increased dexterity, and as outlined below they aid in the reproductive process.
¶ Reproduction
As a species, GikDaa are hermaphroditic. During mating, their reproductive organs may act as both 'male' and 'female' depending on their particular alignment in the moment. However, this act of mating is not, in and of itself, enough for reproduction to occur.
The GikDaa possess a secondary system of organs connected to the primary reproductive system. This secondary system begins with a structure contained in their philangial suckers. When a GikDaa touches a person, this structure scrapes off a genetic sample. This sample is sent into an organ which contains cells that operate similarly to the bacterial CRISPR-Cas9 system. Somehow, this organ can extract and preserve sections of genetic code.
When a GikDaa is prepared for reproduction, this CRISPR organ will release a majority of it's preserved genes, passing them down to another organ connected to the GikDaa's womb, where an egg equivalent will be exposed to these genes. This organ will work to combine the genetic samples into the gene sequence of the egg until a new, viable genetic sequence is formed.
At this point, the organ will release the egg into the womb, where an enzyme activates cell division. Unlike humanity, a GikDaa egg does not need to attach to the wall to divide successfully. Gestation takes roughly four months to complete before birth, when their young are transferred to an abdominal pouch for a further four months.
¶ Focus
The GikDaa are instinctive Focus users. Their philangial sucker structures also act as the main point of their Focus use. When a GikDaa touches a person or object, their will aides in their comprehension of whomever or whatever they are touching.
This has made the GikDaa a very touch-oriented species, as their best method of understanding the world around them is through this Focus-enhanced sense.
This is a purely instinctual, or autonomic, thing. Even once the GikDaa learn about Focus, this is not a function that they can control. Early on, when the NorAellian's first introduced the two species, this was what led to tension between Lyndri and GikDaa, as Focus-sensative Lyndri were deeply repulsed by the autonomic Focus use of the GikDaa.
¶ Society
GikDaa society rarely develop around family groups. Instead, they develop communities of interest and, as a society, they are not only fine when a member wishes to leave one community for another, they encourage this.
To the GikDaa, they know they have a limited lifespan and as a result, they have embraced a societal drive to experience as much as they can. To most other species, this adds to the childlike impression of the GikDaa.
¶ Widdershins
Prior to being introduced to humanity, the GikDaa did not have a word for those who struggled to find a community to belong to. In one of the earliest interactions with a human, a GikDaa was attempting to explain this and the human linguist replied that "it sounds like these GikDaa go widdershins for a bit." This term was practically (and literally if you read the actual account) pounced on by the GikDaa.
Now, instead of saying "we recognize that you do not feel a bond to us in this community and wish to go find one you can bond with. We will miss your presence but we want you to find your happiness more. Go and find your people" they will simply see that a person has gone Widdershins and any GikDaa who hears this will understand.
¶ Plot
The GikDaa have become a bigger part of the universe. Stay tuned.
¶ Behind the Scenes
From Case (pre 6/25):
Originally, I'd thought of the GikDaa as the personification of 'gremlins'. The idea that most ships would have some, unbidden, like rats, that could come in, in a pinch, amused me. I decided to drop them and focus on a few races and really flesh them out, but I couldn't get rid of the GikDaa entirely. So, I made them a dead race, and an interesting point in NorAellian history.
From Matt (6/25):
Surprise! We love these little gremlins so we expanded their role, their history, their society, and kind of everything. Enjoy!