Tassir

THIS SPECIES HAS NOT YET BEEN MIGRATED TO R²
The Tassir are an aquatic race from the planed Fayis in the system Hylon. Together with the Ruun, they form the races of the Helix Alliance.

Physiology
Aquatic by nature, the Tassir are usually around 7-8 feet long, though this translates into a significantly shorter stature when "standing". Possessing six arms and a long, thick lower body, the Tassir manoeuvre through the water via a mix of pushing themselves with their arms, serpentine swimming movements and "walking" on hundreds of tiny appendages that extend from their lower body, moving on these in much the same way as a millipede. Their primary manipulators are two thin arms ending in long, webbed digits, while the other arms are much weaker and less mobile, with the lowest set only able to grasp light objects. Their skin tone varies wildly depending on the region of Fayis the Tassir's family originated from, though mostly it falls within a colourful range of blues, pinks, greens and browns. Tassir faced few oceanic predators, and as such have soft skin and no natural weapons. They feast on both plant and animal life to sustain themselves, and breathe water through a set of gills running alongside their abdomen. The average life-span for a modern, medically treated Tassir is 100-120 years.

Reproduction
All Tassir are hermaphrodites, able to serve as both female and male in reproduction. A clutch of eggs is developed in a womb-like hollow in the lower body following insemination, and is then released to attached to coral, rocks and other sea-bed features to be grown. A clutch usually contains 5-20 fleshy, transluscent eggs, which individually grow to be about a foot in diameter each. Usually, no more than 3 of 10 eggs survive, due to the relative imperfection of the Tassir reproductive process. In modern times, Tassir often instead have 1-3 "prime" eggs grown, which have a near 100% survival rate, both to safeguard against the disappointment of having but a few eggs survive, but also as a population control mechanism, given their long lives. The growth of these few eggs barely inhibits the functions of a Tassir, since most of the incubation and gestation is taken place once the eggs have been laid.

Civilisational History
With large temperate oceans abundant with life, the Tassir's homeworld of Fayis perfectly accommodated the species' survival and growth. Due to their aquatic nature, the Tassir developed technology at a much slower rate, given the difficulties of energy creation, raw material harvesting and construction underwater. What the Tassir did develop beyond the expected curve of the Advancement Scale was astronomy. Indeed, the Tassir knew about the existance of the Ruun long before the latter crash landed on Fayis, but had not anticipated the arrival of Ranac and Vasko, as their own spaceflight programme was nascent at best. As such, the Tassir were technologically underdeveloped in most areas compared to the Ruun at first Contact, though much progress has been made in the previous decades owing to a surge of exploration and resource harvesting on Fayis' two mega-continents. The reason for this surge was the development of a cheap, dependable breathing apparatus that, combined with wet-suits and medical treatment, allowed the Tassir to venture far inland without need to regularly return to the water. This in turn led to much increased resource harvesting and energy production, with the help of rapidly advancing Robotics technology, which helped the Tassir overcome their physical frailty. As a result of the insights from Vasko during his time among them, Tassir technology jumped forward before the first Runnic city of Ranac was established some 20 years later on Fayis.

Politics
Although a member of the Helix Alliance, the Tassir still hold total political autonomy on their home planet. Long before Contact with the Ruun, the Tassir had developed a pan-global, or rather, pan-oceanic, system of democratic states. Some Observer anthropologists theorise that this remarkably peaceful history is due to a lack of competition for resources or territory, coupled with the unwarlike and frail physical nature of the species.