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.