Nautora

An ethnicity of the Aquris species which live in a large archipelago on the Leosus Ring World.

Nautorans can often spend time above or below the waves. Their living areas are split between the surface and underwater areas, adding to the dual nature of this species who can thrive in either environment. This also allows individuals to chose what conditions to live in based on personal preference, though they require rooms filled with air to eat food. There are a large number of fairly large islands around the archipelaego, so there is still a lot of land area to build on. 

Nautorans normally take up a light blue shade of skin, so they see themselves as 'blue as the water'. Many of their traditions are held underwater, which prevents some disabled individuals (who cannot swim) from participating. They are fairly strong in comparison to other aquris, which can make them appear slightly larger. This is not always the case, however. 

The crime rates for the area have historically been quite high. There are many cases of theft often utilising high speeds to quickly take an item from others while they are unprepared. They thus tend to fear others moving towards them at high speed. Nautoran society is partially made up of rogue gangs and organised crime groups, which can make life here difficult for non-nautorans. Rarely, people die because of the crime rates but it does happen. It is quite common for their government to blame terrorist attacks on opposing nations and fabricate evidence to support the claims.

The nautorans have effectively a warrior culture where might makes right. Stronger individuals are advantaged in their society, and soldiers are particularly strong. They go through a long and painful training process that would significantly harm most people. As such, only the strongest nautorans can be accepted into the military. This does make it virtually impossible to conscript soldiers if need be though.

They are proficient in both land based and water based combat. Though most of their traditions and rites of passage are held underwater, they have training grounds on land as well. A soldier needs to be proficient in both theaters to prevail, but they are allowed to specialise in either theater. Later, with the dawn of the aerial theater at the introduction of militarised airplanes, the nautorans had to adapt. Warfare was fought with guns rather than large swords. They cleared large areas on several islands for airfields. Materials to supply the airfields were shipped there via large boats, or in some cases, amphibious vehicles. 

After the nuclear weapon was invented during a war that happened well after the rise of nuclear power, the nautorans refused to use such a weapon because of their code of honor. They believed that using such a weapon would be cowardice and would be far too inhumane. They mostly developed a defensive doctrine against them, covering their border with huge anti air cannons while stockpiling many of the nuclear weapons themselves (so that other nations would be scared of bombing nautoran archipelagos with nukes).