Stennerot

Tall and incredibly lithe, the Stennerot are by far the tallest of the known sapient races, though they only win out so handedly because of the notable hunch of the Kartet'ha. The length of their bodies and arms were a boon during the species' early days, first as a means for reaching food high in the tropical trees of their home world and then later as they plied the waves in sailing ships of complicated make, but as a consequence, they are a light and not terribly hearty species. Their strength is comparable with the average human, but their bones and muscles tend to be prone to tears and breaks when outside forces are applied to them.

They also, uniquely, have three pairs of functional eyes within their skull, though they are not capable of independent movement from each other. Their myriad eyes give them excellent depth perception, and the fine motor skills of the species are well known, but their fidelity of sight rapidly decreases the farther out they are looking.

Once, the species reproduced through laying eggs, and they still do to some extent. Instead of shelled eggs, they are birthed in a sort of gel casing, which dries as the new-born finishes maturing. Much like the rest of the species, this comparatively odd mix of live and oviparous birth is a scientific curiosity for it's unique evolutionary start and end point.

Embryos themselves gestate within the mother for about six months, and are viable, though not fully formed when birthed, spending another month still developing and growing while the gel casing slowly dries and evaporates over the course of about a month. When the coating has fully evaporated, or at least mostly, the child will become more active and then will need to be taken care of directly by their parent.

Stennerot grow to their full size comparatively quickly, and go throw three distinct stages of their life, accompanied by physical and chemical changes, though these stages are not determined by time, but circumstance.

Both sexes start at the adolescent stage, within which they grow to their full size. This stage is demarcated for their much darker skin and hair colors.

When a Stennerot individual has reached their full size as determined by their genetics, the adult stage is entered. While their body will not change much, chemical and hormonal changes within the body will bring about mental changes, as well as a difference to the coloration of the body, resulting in a much more vibrant coloration in streaks being developed on both hair and skin. This leads to the somewhat ubiquitous artistic description of the species looking like "paint on charcoal".

The final stage of life comes when the individual has found a mate and procreated. After the first pod of young is delivered, the striking colored streaks each individual developed as they entered into the adult stage start to fade to paler versions of their original color. It is not a fast process, but given time they will eventually all fade. There have been a few accounts of the colors returning if given enough time after mating, but there has never been a scientific link established between those cases and causality or genetics.

Likely due to the species' development in isolated enclaves, the way the species socially organizes is fairly compartmentalized, with a sort of inverted pyramid of social responsibility.

The settlement one is born into holds the most importance, and you are to seek it's prosperity at nearly all costs. Then your responsibility is to the region, the state, the country, etc, getting broader and broader until you are finally at the species and then extraterrestrial species. The farther along the list, the less immediate importance they hold.

While this approach worked mostly fine during the early days, it now no longer covers in a satisfactory way for most Stennerot. Not many feel a kinship with colonies they've never seen out in the stars, or governments that only come to take their tribute and leave. Their threads of brother and sisterhood, however, remain strong.

The Stennerot Planetary Federation is the governmental body that holds the largest portion of the Stennerot population as part of it's constituency, and is considered the species legitimate government.

For much of Stennerot history, the species was separated into many hundreds of city states across the planet. The lack of large and more importantly contiguous landmasses made empire building rather difficult. Repeated naval invasions tend to be rather draining on resources and manpower. As such, the individual islands developed largely on their own, and their inventions and developments would have to spread through trade and cultural osmosis.

This set of circumstances would remain in place until the industrialization of the species, when things like pike, shot, and cannon became commonplace, and the species long tradition of sail could be elevated with advanced shipwright techniques. Only then did something resembling countries start to form, comprised of confederations of may islands. The period would be defined by conflict on the seas.

After that, as trade was able to reach farther and wider in more reasonable time, the ties between the species continued to grow and would eventually be woven into our current idea of a unified government as the information age drew to a close.

The Stennerot rather quickly traveled to the other worlds in their star system, and put down roots. By the time they actually left their solar system, they had an active colony on every planet, and a flourishing terraforming attempts to make them more hospitable. For many years after the species spread out past their home system, ice asteroids and other sources of water remained one of the most valuable interstellar imports of the species before they encountered any other sapients. Takes quite a bit of water to make a planet like home, you see.

In the modern age; the species long tradition of sailing, and then with large scale air travel would eventually translate into a well lauded corps of stellar sailors, that holds respect almost universally. Having such well regimented crews has caused the Stennerot navy to explode in size in an effort to keep physical confrontations, most of which the species would lose due to their physicality, to a minimum. A policy of ending the enemy within space before they even get boots on the ground. Stennerot space is some of the safest in the known galaxy, as they are also proficient pirate hunters.

The Stennerot merchant marine has built a near spotless reputation for reliability, and has cut out a niche for interspecies trade.

The Federation has maintained a fairly firm policy of neutrality, and avoided most open conflict, in galactic politics since it's introduction to the galactic stage, instead preferring to use economic and trade pressure to get what they want. At the same time, the Admiralty Board seems barely restrained in it's wish for open stellar-naval warfare.