Aldru


Homeworld:

Alidur

Other planets inhabited:

Rhtuim, Umbri, Nathur, Lorigen

Appearance:

The Aldru are a relatively stocky race, with a thick layer of body fat and muscle beneath their pure white, highly insulative fur. They are exceedingly well adapted to life in cold conditions, having broad, snowshoe like feet, thick, milky secondary eyelids to protect them from driving snow, sleet, and snow blindness, and long tufts of black hair descending from below their forward set eyes, to absorb much of the light reflecting off the ice sheets of their homeworld. Aldru are amphibious air breathers, with a maximum dive length of forty minutes. The Aldru are capable of surviving in even the most frigid waters because of the insulative nature of the oils trapped in their fur. When underwater, the broad feet of the Aldru act as paddles, enabling them to swim with great speed. The Aldru have formidable claws and needle sharp teeth, which they use both for self defense and for the hunt, particularly when chasing fish below the water's surface.

Modern Aldru tend not to wear anything other than bandoliers, weapon straps, armor or suchlike. The tufts of thick black hair beneath their eyes are allowed to grow to great lengths, and are something of a status symbol among the Aldru.

Leaders:

The Aldru are ruled by a hereditary monarch, whose powers are limited by an elected council. Council members serve for six Alidur years, and the deliberations of the councils are public.

World View:

The Aldru tend to take the long view, passing up immediate benefits in exchange for long term goals. They see the universe as being an unimaginably large place, and try to stabilize their little portion of it.

Temperament:

Aldru enjoy serenity, and try to seek it out whenever possible. However, when serenity becomes an impossible goal, they are willing to take energetic action. They are not an innately violent race, but if kept from relaxing for long enough amounts of time, they become increasingly edgy and dangerous. Imperial overseers eventually learned that pattern, and gave Aldru plenty of time off. However, they didn't realize that the Aldru could also become quite violent when they decided that violence was necessary, and the revolt was quite unanticipated.

Aldru are happiest when swimming underneath the icesheets, and reach a somewhat euphoric state when they've been out on the oceans for a few weeks. During the colder months, the Aldru hunt on the icesheets, where more intensity is required, and they are much less happy when they haven't been swimming for a while.

History and Culture:

The Aldru are a relatively old sentient species, but have been tied very closely to the seasons of their planet until recently. Alidur is a frigid water world, whose surface freezes over completely for half of the year. The Aldru were an equatorial race, feeding on the vast shoals of fish during the summer months, and scratching a living off of the ice sheets during the winter. The summers were times of great plenty, as the waters beneath Alidur's ice sheets are among the most fertile in the sector, but the winters were absolutely brutal, with little life on the icesheets, and great competition for what few resources were available, producing a communal society during the summers and a solitary one during the winters, a behavior pattern encouraged by the euphoria and calm the Aldru experience when able to swim.

Alidur has no easily accessible metal deposits, no exposed surface stone, not even any woody plants, so the development of the Aldru's technology was impaired for a very long time, limited to bone huts covered in fur and fish skins. They eventually discovered that fish oils and the blubber from various mammalian creatures are flammable, and became able to spread across the planet in permanent communities, composed of huge ice structures supported by whale bone columns and lined with furs centered around open water pools kept from freezing over by watchfires. This is the highest level of technology that the Aldru were able to reach on their own, primarily because of the limitations of their resources.

During the Yrotha war the Aldru were unable to defend themselves against Yrotha depredations, but when the Yrotha were forced to pull out they left some of their ships behind, and the Aldru started to explore their solar system. Despite their inability to develop technology, they were quite adept at understanding it, and soon planted several colonies on the frigid Rhtium. Colder than Alidur, but with substantial mineral reserves, the Rhtium colonies were able to survive off of the local wildlife, and soon spread across the planet. The Yrotha ships soon became inoperable, but the Aldru had already invented radio at that point, and the two worlds kept in close touch. When spaceflight was finally achieved by the Aldru of Rhtium, the two worlds were once again brought into contact.

After several centuries of constant technological advance, the Aldru sent sublight generation vessels to several nearby solar systems. These huge craft took hundreds of years to reach their goals, and two of the five craft did not reach their goals, but the other three did, establishing colonies on Umbri, Nathur, and Lorigen. Interstellar traders (apparently Skathelon, though the military Skathelon expansion never reached Aldru space) found the colony on Nathur, and soon the Aldru had hyperspace travel. As the population of Alidur was brought under control by this time, the Aldru had little desire to expand further at that time, though travel between the Aldru worlds gradually became commonplace.

Then the Empire came, and while the Aldru attempted to resist, their primitive craft were no match for the Imperial war machine. Their defenses soon fell and they were enslaved by the Empire. Their powerful build and relative good temper destined them for manual labor, which they performed without complaint, as long as they had time to swim. The Empire did not know that the Aldru could communicate over great distances under water, and the level of preparedness of their revolt took the Imperials by complete surprise. All of the Imperial bases and garrisons on their worlds were undermined and destroyed, and the planetary shield generators were seized. Black market contacts supplied the Aldru with planetary ion cannons, five Panther Cruisers and a small fleet of Hunter and TIE/ln fighters.

When the Empire returned, in the form of three Victory class Star Destroyers and an Imperial class command ship, they were in for a surprise. Despite their outdated ships, some of which were performing at less than 30% of their listed specifications, the Aldru's planning carried the day. The Ion cannons kept the ships away from the shield generators on Alidur, and the ground assault failed miserably, as the extreme cold of the water and the Aldru's swimming abilities stalled subsurface attacks, and undermining drowned any attempt at a surface assault. While the Imperials remained in Alidur's orbit, the combat starfighters were loaded into a captured Imperial ore freighter which was set on a collision course with the command ship. The hull of the massive freighter was quickly breached, and the fighters boiled out, avoiding the usual fighter screen and destroying the Imperial class ship. One Victory class ship had been disabled by the Ion cannon blast, and the remaining ship left the field of battle.

A larger Imperial fleet was scheduled to bring the Aldru back under control, but Moff Doran needed all available ships for the battle of Oth'Lenar. After that disaster no ships were available for quite a while. By the time the Imperium rose and had sufficient craft to make the attempt to retake the Aldru systems, the defenses of those worlds had been developed to quite high levels, using black market Yaeger and Imperial technology and deep subsurface power generators whose energy signatures were concealed either by the masses of life forms in Alidur's oceans, or by baffling technology. Fearing a drawn out campaign far from the front lines with the Yaeger, Rulduk set up a blockade around Aldru space, and left it at that. When the Shuumar rebellion succeeded, the Aldru and Shuumar broke through the blockade to release the Questrans from Imperial control, and to connect their areas of control.

The Aldru feel that they owe a debt of gratitude to the Yaeger, as the Yaeger supplied them with weapons and craft during their rebellion at or below cost. However, Alliance with the Yaeger would turn them from a nuisance to a threat in Imperium eyes, so they have refrained from making that move. The New Republic's offer of incorporation extended to the Aldru was somewhat less tempting, as they knew very little about the New Republic, except that the Empire was more solidly against the New Republic than they were regarding the Yaeger. For the Aldru, the Confederation of Unaligned Worlds is a convenience, not the ideological ideal it is to the Shuumar and Questrans.

Tech Level:

Space. The Aldru have been purchasing modern weapon and production technology at a furious rate since they won their independence from the Empire, paying with either raw materials, food products, or war bonds, which only the Yaeger will accept as payment.

Aldru in the Sector:

Constant travel to the Aldru worlds by Yaeger free traders has allowed many Aldru off their homeworld, and into the ports of the Yaeger Sector, where they are known as capable pilots and superior brawlers. The Imperium still classifies Aldru as a slave race, and many Aldru that had been shipped off their homeworld still work in Imperial mines and factories.

A Quote:

"It's always so still beneath the ice"

Spaceships:

A mixture of Yaeger, Imperial, and general market craft. Aldru scientists are working on modification of existing craft and production of new craft to meet the Aldru's specifications, but they have yet to produce anything significant.

Stats:

Attribute Dice:12D+2
Attribute Min/Max
Dexterity: 2D+1/4D+2
Knowledge: 2D/4D
Mechanical: 1D/4D+1
Perception: 2D/3D+2
Strength: 3D/5D
Technical: 1D/3D+2
Move: 10/12, 12/14 Swimming.

Special Abilities:

Swimming:
The Aldru swim at the listed rate, and get 2D for every dice put into that skill throughout their careers.

Underwater subsonic communications:
Aldru can talk to each other for up to 10 km when they are both beneath the surface.

Story Factors:

Slave Race:
Free Aldru are not permitted in the Imperium, and any Aldru in Imperium space risks being transferred to the mines regardless of all other factors.
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