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Excerpt, Defiance
physiology[]
- "black, with beady eyes above a large, open and rather delicate nasal cavity that made up much of the face. Side gills for breathing, in through the lower jaw and neck, out through that sensitive nose" (D-32)
- "three tall, robed, hooded figures. Their robes were various shades of grey and black, silvery in the synthetic sunlight and shimmering. Their faces were mostly veiled, save for jet black eyes with a bluish tint. Beneath the veils, the hint of wide nasal and mouth arrangement that made up most of the lower face, delicate and protected" (R-23)
- synthetic-organic combination: "She’d read this classified report too, about the alo. Micro-filament, neither organic nor inorganic, made of intermediate carbon-based materials, reaching through the limbs to provide a sensory and coordination boost to hands and fingers....Alo took it to a whole other level. And now she’d become perhaps the first human ever to see with her own eyes that the Reeh did the same. She dropped the hand and went back to...” (CV-22)
characteristics[]
Manipulative puppeteers:
“Do you know that the alo were behind the chah'nas first sending aid to earth, when the krim first invaded Sol System? Chankow explained... It was the alo's idea. They're the true masterminds behind the chah'nas plan to push back the tavalai from the center of Spiral power...We don't know why, but we've known for a long time there's a very old AI connection. It's one of the most well kept secrets. All the old hacksaw bases, stations, cities, manufacturing centers in our space have been either kept secret, moved or even destroyed to help keep the secret." (DL -16)
- powerful, technologically advanced, secretive:
- Rarely seen, antisocial / aloof
“Alo were not sociable, and their manners made chah'nas seem paragons of etiquette. They thought humans smelled bad, in more ways than one, but their combined wealth and knowledge was said to be more than all of human and chah'nas space combined.”
- "they’ve been allies with the chah'nas for a few thousand years” (R-22)
- currently, also ally with /manipulate sard with "gifts of technology and visions of power” (DL-20)
- they destroy any ships that enter alo space uninvited (R-22)
- professor Stan Romki noticed similarities in alo - deepynine respective languages (R) so Fleet stifled his publications and interactions with graduate students
Alo Characters[]
- Ambassador Aloish, Torshik:
Three robed alo offer to fix UFS Phoenix when Erik, Trace, and Command Squad arrive at Hoffen Station, Heuron (R-23)
"...three tall, robed, hooded figures. Their robes were various shades of grey and black, silvery in the synthetic sunlight and shimmering. Their faces were mostly veiled, save for jet black eyes with a bluish tint. Beneath the veils, the hint of wide nasal and mouth arrangement that made up most of the lower face, delicate and protected. Alo. Three of them, and apparently waiting for them, as though they’d known precisely where to be.
“Greetings,” said the one in the middle. Its voice was toneless, little more than a high-pitched series of clicks produced so rapidly it might have been mechanical...
...“Without your name, your offer means nothing to me,” Erik replied.
A short pause that might have been laughter. The dark eyes squinted a little behind the hood and veil. “Aloish. I am senior. Phoenix is a grand vessel. One of our best. It pains us to see you mistreat her. Fix her we will.”
...Erik looked at the card. On it was scrawled alo script...a name...
“Torshik. That’s an anglicised name, the original’s untranslatable. Ambassador.”
Erik frowned. “Ambassador to Hoffen Station? Or to Heuron V?”
“Ambassador to Heuron System. All of it. Database even gives me a match on the visual I got of his face. That’s him, Ambassador Torshik. This is the alo’s most important post in human space, so that’s probably the most important Ambassador they have anywhere.”
Offering to fix their ship? Erik watched the three robed figures vanish into a doorway, and felt a very nasty trepidation... (R-23)
Tan[]
Tan is an alo teenager in Reeh space at the Raka Fleet Yard. Part of Raka family. He has VR uploads and joins UFS Phoenix. He speaks Tikitch and feels superior to humans. (Ceephay Queen)
Origins[]
- "...the answer to a question that had tantalised the Spiral for three thousand years. “So we know where the alo came from,” said Erik. “They were a Reeh slave species. Like the tanifex.” (RS-29)
- Professor Stan Romki: "There are ancient records in Chah'nas space that they don't touch, not being curious, of the very first recordings of the Alo, when they first made contact with the Chah'nas. For a long time, Alo only spoke to Chah'nas. Since then, Alo language has changed drastically, but ancient records show clear similarity between Alo and C-9, the primary tongue of the DP9s." (Renegade-27)
Erik and Romki, in Defiance:
Erik stared at the screen. “That’s croma space now,” he murmured. “We thought we knew little about the parren — the croma are just legend .”
“No,” Romki said sombrely. “You’re looking at croma space, yes. But the region indicated in the record suggests that alo came from beyond croma space. And out there, I’m afraid, are the reeh .”
Erik looked at him. “Seriously? I barely heard about them in the Academy either." . . . “Why? What have you heard ?”
“The sard are bad,” said Romki. “The krim were worse. The reeh are worse again, and many times more powerful than the krim and sard at their very height combined .”
“We should not go there,” said Styx...(D-32)