Mithgiln

Home System

• Quadrant: Alpha
• Location: Galactic Southwest of the Cardassian Union on the Edge of the Aavaro Wilds
• Proper Name: Mithgiln
• Star: Covarian
• Distance from Star: 1.2au
• Companions:
• Moons: Bantis and Martis

Home World

• Proper Name: Mitandar
• Diameter:
• Gravity:
• Axial Tilt:
• Orbital Period:
• Rotational Period:
• Classification: M
• Surface Water:
• Atmosphere:
• Climate:
• Terrain:
• Population: 3 billion

History

The Mithgiln have a rather colorful history, civil war plaguing their past up until the formation of the Conclave. The Conclave was formed after the Mithgiln nearly obliterated themselves in civil war, prior to achieving space flight. The population greatly reduced, they formed the Conclave, making sure that no bias found its way into the Conclave. Truthfully they saw that their fighting and their prejudice where Castes were involved nearly killed off their people, and decided that enough was enough and turned their civilization around. The Conclave was the driving force behind all of this. The wisest members of each caste were chosen for the Conclave, and when the Conclave met it was in secret, so that no one outside the Conclave would know who favored what. The Conclave decided that it would forever speak with one voice, for the good of their people, they would never be seen to fight or disagree. The population believed their wisest members had actually found ways to agree and that there actually was always agreement between the Conclave members. They developed the system to break ties, so that each Caste had equal time with in the year. All the general populace knew was that their wisest leaders had come out with one voice and demanded that there be peace. That no caste could exist without the others, as each caste worked in service of the others, and the life of one caste would be worthless without the other three castes. The fighting stopped, and their civilization took off like a rocket. With the focus on service, the Mithgiln quickly rebuilt their ruined cities, the lessons they learned in their wars never leaving them. What has once been only duty to the Caste, became duty to the people at large and, after interstellar travel was available, service to the greater galaxy.

After the Castes united under the Conclave, technology took off like a rocket. Space flight took them to their moons and the next planet out in their system. With the development of basic impulse the Mithgiln started exploring further out in their system. The first full impulse ship, The Galandar, bore a mixed Caste crew to the outer planets in the system. The Ship approached the last gas giant in the system for the first in person study of the ring system of the planet. Moving amongst the ring system were five massive creatures, the largest slightly larger than a Galaxy class starship. The Bull of the group began advancing on the Galandar, and the crew of the science ship began a quick retreat only halted by the lone Religious Caste member of the crew who happened to be a telepath. The Telepath claimed that the creature was trying to make contact. Soon enough full contact was made with the creature and the rest of it’s herd. The Creatures, still without a good name, communicated with each other telepathically and were interested in communicating with these new tiny creatures.

Over a number of years the Mithgiln opened a dialog with these space faring creatures, using the Telepaths of the Religious Caste as intermediaries. As time moved on more of these Creatures began visiting the Mithgiln home world, interested in meeting these planet dwelling people. The Creatures, now known now as Shonora, had a legend among their kind that they once traveled with partners, smaller creatures that dwelled inside of them using them to travel among the stars. Why those first partners left is lost to time, but the Shonora always hoped they would find new partners in the world. It was readily apparent to the Mithgiln that the Shonora had been bio-engineered at some point, whether they were created whole cloth or modified from an already existing space faring creature is unknown. The Shonora are living ships in all ways. Once goodwill had been developed, the Shonora invited the Mithgiln to board them. Inside they found the Shonora capable of support a crew, space was set aside where people could live an work without interfering with the Shonora. Areas of the ship had clear places where power could be interfaced from the creature to mount screen. The telepaths of the Religious Caste formed a new Sept comprised of telepaths who worked with the Shonora. These Guardians became interpreters and advocates for the creatures, and most crews carry a senior Guardian and an number of junior guardians. At the back of the Bridge and in a few other spots on the ship, there is a node, a platform of sorts, where the Guardian has a more direct contact with the mind of the Shonora. This place allows the Guardian to share the Shonora’s senses and have easier conversations. Many guardians spend entire shifts in communion with their Shononra. While crews come and go, Guardians are much more stable, and while the Mithgiln are fond of their ships, the Shonora are exceedingly protective of their guardians. A sister Legion in the Military Caste sprung up at the request of a number of the Shonora to provide protection to the Guardians, especially when they are not on the ship. One of the few times Guardians change Shonoras is when a new Shonora is born, typically one of the junior guardians is chosen to become a senior guardian on the new ship. Some instances of hyper protective parents have involved a Senior Guardian from one of the parents being moved to the new Shonora.

Government

The Ruling Body of the Mithgiln is simply called The Conclave. Made up by nine members of each caste, elected by whatever means each caste decides. In the event of a tie in voting, the breaking vote is cast by the Caste that is in dominance. Dominance only exists within the Conclave as a voting mechanism and has absolutely zero effect outside of the conclave. Dominance rotates through the castes by season. Duty to the group is a paramount feature of the Mithgiln, and Dominance isn’t taken lightly and abuse of power is considered a high crime among all. The drive of Duty is a major force in both everyday life and governance. In decisions that center on a Castes area of expertise, due deference is given to the caste in question without a second thought. The Conclave holds closed sessions only, and in all things the conclave presents its decisions with a singular voice. Most Mithgiln understand that what goes on behind closed doors is less unified, but appreciate and respect the symbolism of the Conclave acting without friction.

On a local level, towns and cities are governed by local conclaves made up of equal (but varying) numbers of each caste. Due to the love of duty, the local conclaves often only provide a unified direction to the community and rarely need to step in with binding laws or decrees.

Description

Physical Appearance: Humanoid with the following differences

• Eyes: Larger and wider set than human, colors are diverse and trend towards gem tones. The eyes are all color or pupil, and have no white.
• Wings: All Mithgiln have a pair of vestigial wings similar in morphology to dragonflies, but with only a single pair. Coloration is based on Caste. Insert just below the top of the shoulder near the shoulder blades. Emotion is often betrayed by wing movement.

Height is similar to Humans, while weight trends towards slender and well muscled, a throwback of having once been fliers earlier in their evolution.

Physiology

The Mithgiln evolved from creatures similar to insects, but share some mammalian traits as well. Their wings are hold overs from a previous evolutionary stage and can no longer carry them in flight. Mithgiln still retain full control over the movement of their wings, but now serve as little more than indicators of caste and the individual's emotions. The Mithgiln's eyes are also slightly more sensitive to near infrared and ultraviolet light.

Psychology

Duty is to the Mithgiln as Honor is to the Klingons and selfishness is looked down on in a way cowardice is in the Klingon Empire. This is not to say that the Mithgiln are naive or dups, just that the focus is always on community first and then the individual.

Society

The Mithgiln exist in a caste structure. In modern Mithgiln society the Castes are completely equal, although that has not always been the case. The last conflict between the castes was nearly a thousand years ago. Society is divided up into four castes, Warrior, Worker, Scholar and Religious.

• Warrior Caste is responsible for internal and external security of Mitandar and it’s colony worlds. They crew war ships and are ground forces in any conflict. The serve as police officers, security workers, advisors and body guards. (Various Shades of Red wings)

• Worker Caste are generally responsible for the day to day operation of Mithgiln society. Engineers, Chefs, farmers, most of the shop keepers. Without the Worker Caste life would get very rough very quickly. (Various shades of Blue wings)

• Scholar Caste contains the scientists, medical professionals, librarians, and Teachers. These Mithgiln are responsible for the intellectual advancement of their society. (Various shades of Brown Wings)

• Religious Caste contains the society’s priests. The Mithgiln are a deeply spiritual people, and the Religious caste care for the people on this level. The Religious caste also contain the only telepaths (T4/E4) among the Mithgiln people. (Various Shades of Green Wings)

There are some jobs that are performed by multiple castes. All of the castes have some shop keepers selling products and services specific to their castes. Philosophers and therapists come from both the Religious and Scholar castes. Worker and Religious Castes both have artists.

The Castes tend to form various organizations based on training and trade, similar to unions or professional organizations. Naming of these groups varies by Caste, and tends to be flowery. These groups tend to be responsible for training as well as working to make advancements in their field. There are redundancies some due to regional difference, others due to Groups being founded in differing locations and growing until they eventually overlap.

• Worker Caste Refer to these groups as Orders or Unions (Order of the Silver Wheel are transportation workers, Union of the Green Earth is one of many farming groups)
• Religious Caste refer to the groups as Septs or Churches (Church of the Eternal Song for the Goddess of Death)
• Scholar Caste call them Colleges or Schools
• Warrior Caste call them Legions or Phalanxes, these groups generally refer to the warriors specific training and most active units have mixed groups.

These nouns evolve over time and new trends emerge over time and old names die away. These groups can be super general (Farmers) to super specific (Hard climate farming of a specific crop).

The Mithgiln consider the Shonora full members of their society and officially awarded all Shonora citizenship about two centuries ago. While this rarely comes up it does mean that the Mithgiln Defense Force is responsible for their protection even when independent Shonora are outside of Mithgiln controlled space.

Culture

The Mithgiln have five languages. There is a common language (Mithgil) that is spoken by all. Each Caste also has a language specific to itself.

• The Religious Caste’s language is very lyrical and tonal, and very reminiscent of singing.
• Warrior Caste language is very clipped and fast, useful for tactical situations. It lacks a lot of complexity, focusing on getting necessary information across quickly.
• Worker Caste language is plain and well laid out, developed out of a need to communicate across fields and loud shop floors, the language includes a number of glottal stops and fricatives that help delineate the beginning and ends of words.
• The Scholar Caste language is nearly the opposite of the Warrior Caste. Focused on description and information delivery the speakers of the language can seem excessively long winded. It is one of the hardest languages to learn.

While in the past the Caste languages were kept very secure and even secret in some cases, in modern times it is not uncommon for people to develop some ability with a caste language other than their own, especially those individuals who work closely with members of other castes.

Technology

Early in their forays into space travel, the Mithgiln developed a partnership with the Shonora (the Mithgil word for Ship). These ships are fully sentient creatures that were bio-engineered sometime in their distant past prior to meeting the Mithgiln.

The Mithgiln have developed technology similar to the Federation with some exceptions.

• They have only recently developed replicator technology, and it's use is still very limited. Farming and food production was long ago mastered by the Worker Caste, who developed hydroponics and other methods for increasing food production with using less space long before other comparable cultures.

• Ship building lags behind most other comparable cultures due mostly to the lack of pressure to develop in that direction for nearly a century. When their need for transport out stripped the number of Shonora willing to work with the Mithgiln, they began working on suitable artificial ships, back engineering various propulsion methods from their Shonora partners.

Military

The Mithgiln Defense Force is the military organization responsible for the defense of Mithgiln controlled space and Mithgiln citizens beyond it's borders. While the Warrior Caste makes up the vast majority of the members of the MDF, all of the other castes are represented to some degree in support and advisory roles. Also, while present on all Shonora, the Guardians of the Religious Caste do not technically belong to the MDF, as they are attached directly to the Shonora as their representatives. Except in the most extreme circumstances, only a Shonora can removed a Guardian from their position.