Starkind
Starkind, often referred to as Dragons, are one of the oldest known races in the Milky Way galaxy. They are loosely governed by the Council of Elders.
Background
Starkind often live to be at least 3000-3500 years old, discounting any accidents or other significant injury. They do not begin having children until they are about 750 years old, and only have them every couple hundred years. They usually have a single live birth, but occasional multiples are born (either twins or triplets). They birth and raise their young on planets such as Earth as the young need an oxygen-rich atmosphere until they are about 14-15 years old. The offspring tend to stay with or near their mothers for the first 150-200 years, though some leave before then.
Those in the Sol system use the Earth as their Nesting Ground. Outside of nesting, they spend most of their time traveling around or lounging on asteroids in the Solar System. When nesting, the females stay near Earth, usually residing on the Moon or on nearby asteroids when they aren't on Earth. They have been responsible for saving their Nesting Ground from major meteor strikes for the last 66 million years.
The K-T extinction event was an attack on their civilization, which was mostly based on Earth at that time. Enough of them were spread throughout the Sol system to prevent their extinction. Since then, they have spent much of their adult lives preventing that from happening again. They began wormhole travel about 30 million years ago. They have thus populated a large percentage of the Milky Way Galaxy.
They are familiar with the Halfen, Renn, Kimmalevoi, and the other races in the galaxy. However, they only rarely become involved in the politics and dealings of the other races, and most prefer spending time only with other dragons. Ekoha and Chiemi are two of only a few that have become directly involved in human history.
Appearance and abilities
Starkind are large, cold-blooded, silicon-based life forms. The have an appearance similar to Eastern dragons, but with very large wings. Their scales are translucent and matte, allowing them to use their chameleon-like skin to easily blend in with their surroundings. Some have color preferences they stick with for extended times. When in a vacuum, their scales become extremely shiny, and their skin becomes jet black, so they blend into the sky by looking like the stars.
They use their skin to very efficiently absorb energy from the full spectrum of light, and use micro wormholes to boost the energy output exponentially when they are moving (once they hit the 250km/s speed where they can accelerate to 0.10c). This makes them very difficult to see with radar since they absorb it. They can ride the solar winds to move from place to place, similar to how a sailor can use the winds to move a boat, even tacking against the wind to move into it.
Once up to speed (about 250 km/s, takes about 20 minutes, distance covered about 10,000 km), they can use stored light energy and solar wind energy particles to speed up to about 1/10 the speed of light (about 29,979.2 km/s, takes another 5 minutes to speed up to that speed).
All dragons have excellent spatial awareness, especially within a vacuum. They can easily calculate trajectories and orbits. Dragons can use the wormholes and can “see” through them in order to travel through safely.
They eat the rocks (asteroids, etc.) to obtain oxygen, strengthen their bone structure with the silicon, and to obtain various other trace elements. While in vacuum, they “breathe” to move the oxygen gas from their special rock-digestion stomach to their lungs. However, they do not require large amounts of oxygen.
Telepathic communication
Starkind are highly intelligent and communicate via telepathy. Their emotions are communicated through combinations of abstract colors and shapes sent telepathically with their thoughts. They can not read minds, however. They can only project. They can understand spoken human speech.
With their thoughts come various colors that help convey emotion:
| Color | Meanings |
|---|---|
| Bright yellow | joy |
| Mixed pastels | happiness |
| Rainbow ripple/halo/splash | amusement, mirth |
| Green/blue bursts | just kidding, joking, not serious |
| Bright red | anger |
| Blues | calm |
| Bright pink | annoyance |
| Hot pink laced with bright yellow slashes | suspicion |
| Dull green | grumpiness |
| Bright red/orange burst | alarm, sharp concern |
| Bright white flashes | pain |
| Murky green | fear |
| Muted yellow w/slight bright red/orange speckles | cautious |
| Tans/browns | understanding, acceptance |
| Tans/browns with mixed pastels | relief |