Astatines

The Astatines were the second race to come into contact with the Zambarau after the Sceen. Upon contact, the Astatines still lived primarily on their home planet and posessed an emerging interplanetary civilization. The homeworld of the Astatines, Niima, is in a highly elliptical orbit around a large gas giant, Mulwark, in turn, Mulwark orbits a brown dwarf star which emits almost no light whatsoever. Niima's highly elliptical orbit puts it under huge tidal stresses which significantly warms up the ground, causing the planet to emit large amounts of heat, this heat is intense enough to give Niima large, shallow oceans of liquid water. The average temperature on Niima is only 5°C and is fairly constant over the whole planet, Niima has a low gravity and over billions of years its atmosphere has become very thin.

The Astatines are carnivorous amphibions. They stand approximately 4 metres tall and are made up of a bulbous body about 60 centimetres in diameter with dozens of long, thin, tentacles coming out from the bottom which are used for walking and handling objects. The number of tentacles differs from person to person and the average number of tentacles, along with the thickness and tactile nature of the tentacles differs between ethnic groups. The Astatines are usually a very dark brown/grey colour, but this also differs between ethnic groups.

The Astatines have no ability to see whatsoever. They use ultrasound echolocation as hearing is their primary sense, after which comes touch (their tentacles are very sensitive to touch, but no so much to pain as they use their tentacles to walk). They also use ultrasound in communication. The Astatines do not have genders (though they still have to mate to reproduce) and all members of their species have the ability to give birth. Naturally Astatines would spend over 60% of their time in water and must give birth in water as they give birth to hundreds of tiny larvae that can only survive in water, these larvae will try to swim among the tentacles of adult Astatines (not necessarily their parent) for protection. Astatines do not need to sleep.

Upon contact with the Zambarau the Astatines were in a cold war that involved four main power blocs (and their allies). The Astatines spent most of their time out of the oceans for fear of the devastating sonic weapons developed by each power bloc, which could instantly kill any marine life within several dozen kilometres. The four power blocs remained at odds for hundreds of years. When it came to the signing of the Concord each had to sign separately as no one power bloc wanted to represent the Astatines, for fear of enraging the other three.