Part One -- The Shostak Institute Entry

Systematics
Species Time Frame:  Provolved by T’zeche 745 million years ago, have had a cycle of civilizations for the past 300 million years, with the current civilization beginning 23 million years ago.
Current Status:  A highly stable multi-species polity possessing advanced biotechnology.
Known Worlds:  44 systems in the Local Neighborhood, with probably over 1000 systems in the total polity with 20 interstellar civilizations, 37 planetary civilizations and 74 world civilizations.
Impact on Sol System:  [classified]

Classification:  Tsubareyus heiarchus
Biochemistry:  Carbon and water based with a hydrogen/methane metabolic cycle.
Morphology:  Colony organism with bilateral and semi-radial symmetry.
Environment:  Lower mass Jovian worlds (typically Brammian Subtype), though some clades are adapted to the vacuum of space.
Reproduction:  Sexually through colonial “swarming”.
Intelligence:  Tsubar’ey are highly intelligent and have a great capacity for memory well suited for their 10,000 year life-spans.

Introduction and Notes

It is somewhat difficult to both design an alien species objectively, and to provide the reader with information on them while preserving the mystery.  Indeed, the two halves seem to be mutually exclusive.  Therefore, the general format of this page will be to provide information from two different point of views.

The first part of the page will deal with what a dedicated member of the Shostak Institute of Earth would know.  These two views can be shown concurrently, without a redundancy of information, for one will be largely a historical overview, while the other will deal almost exclusively with the impact that such a species, or even the simple knowledge of such a species, will have on "modern" Humanity.

The second part is a history of the species written from an omniscient point of view, in order to provide a full spectrum of information. Even items that a dedicated scientist from the year 3501 CE, the "present year", would not know shall be presented here, or in future updates to the site.

Tsubar'ey Timeline

2.85-2.6 billion years ago: The original Dunwalli civilization rises and falls in the Andromeda Galaxy before the species migrates to the Milky Way Galaxy, where their ruins will be discovered by subsequent Tsubar’ey civilizations in that galaxy.

967-923 million years ago: The Kelvara evolve on a Dunwalli terraformed world in the Andromeda Galaxy, and spread throughout much of it.  They leave behind a number of megastructures that will be encountered by the Tsubar’ey.

745 million years ago: The Tsubar’ey are provolved by the T’zeche.

745-743 million years ago: The span of the First Tsubar’ey Civilization.

743-738 million years ago: The span of the Second Tsubar’ey Civilization, which arose from the ashes of the T’zeche Civilization, only to collapse from a reliance on the technology of their former masters, and the natural process of stellar drift.

730 million years ago: Tsubar’ey civilization re-emerges on multiple planets across former T’zeche territory.

730-719 million years ago: The Third Tsubar’ey Civilization rises and falls.

719-716 million years ago: The First Intergalactic Migration, a full migration from the Milky Way to the Andromeda Galaxy by the Tsubar'ey.

716-267 million years ago:  The Fourth Tsubar’ey Civilization rises and falls in the Andromeda Galaxy.

297-294 million years ago: The Second Intergalactic Migration, a partial migration from Andromeda to the Milky Way Galaxy.

294-257 million years ago: The Fifth Tsubar’ey Civilization rises and falls in the Milky Way Galaxy.

265 million years ago: Final transmissions from the Fourth Tsubar’ey Civilization of the Andromeda Galaxy are received by the Fifth Tsubar’ey Civilization in the Milky Way Galaxy.

257-253 million years ago: The Third Tsubar’ey Intergalactic Migration, a full double migration from the Milky Way to the Andromeda and Triangulum Galaxies.

254-170 million years ago: The Sixth Tsubar’ey Civilization rises and falls in the Andromeda Galaxy.  It will be eradicated in a forced assimilation attempt by the Tenth Civilization.

253-233 million years ago: The Seventh Tsubar’ey Civilization rises and falls in the Triangulum Galaxy.

233-229 million years ago: The Fourth Tsubar’ey Intergalactic Migration, a full migration from the Triangulum to the Milky Way Galaxy.

229-206 million years ago: The Eighth Tsubar’ey Civilization rises and falls in the Milky Way Galaxy.

206-203 million years ago: The Fifth Tsubar’ey Intergalactic Migration, a full migration from the Milky Way to the Triangulum Galaxy.

203-174 million years ago: The Ninth Tsubar’ey Civilization rises and falls in the Triangulum Galaxy.

174-171 million years ago: The Sixth Tsubar’ey Intergalactic Migration, a full double migration from the Triangulum to the Andromeda and Milky Way Galaxies.

172-163 million years ago: The Tenth Tsubar’ey Civilization rises and falls in the Andromeda Galaxy.

171-156 million years ago: The Eleventh Tsubar’ey Civilization rises and falls in the Milky Way Galaxy.

156-152 million years ago: The Seventh Tsubar’ey Intergalactic Migration, a full double migration from the Milky Way to the Andromeda and Triangulum Galaxies.

153-131 million years ago: The Twelfth Tsubar’ey Civilization rises and falls in the Andromeda Galaxy.

152-101 Million years ago: The Thirteenth Tsubar’ey Civilization rises and falls in the Triangulum Galaxy.  It will be destroyed in mutual warfare with the Sixteenth Civilization.

131-128 million years ago: The Eighth Tsubar’ey Intergalactic Migration, a full migration from Andromeda to the Milky Way Galaxy.

128-92 million years ago: The Fourteenth Tsubar’ey Civilization rises and falls in the Milky Way Galaxy.

107-103 million years ago: The Ninth Tsubar’ey Intergalactic Migration, a partial double migration from the Milky Way to the Andromeda and Triangulum Galaxies.

104 million years ago: The Fifteenth Tsubar’ey Civilization is founded in the Andromeda Galaxy.

103-101 million years ago: The Sixteenth Tsubar’ey Civilization rises and falls in the Triangulum Galaxy.  It and the Thirteenth Tsubar'ey Civilization destroy each other in war.

84-82 million years ago: The Tenth Tsubar’ey Intergalactic Migration, a partial migration from Andromeda to the Triangulum Galaxy.

82-45 million years ago: The Seventeenth Tsubar’ey Civilization rises and achieves ascension in the Triangulum Galaxy.

80 million years ago: The Seventeenth Tsubar’ey Civilization encounters the Starwalkers, a nanotechnological civilization of self-replicating machines seeded and provolved by an Eiyogsha individual.

77.5 million years ago: The Starwalkers become divided over the next step in the course of their evolution.  The pro-bioist faction believe the best course is to integrate biotechnology into their systems, and the anti-bioist faction believe such modification of organic life is an abomination.

77.5-77.3 million years ago: The Bioist war threatens to devastate the Triangulum Galaxy, eventually drawing the Tsubar'ey into the conflict.

77.3 million years ago: The Tsubar’ey enter the Starwalker Bioist war on the pro-bioist side and devastate the anti-bioist forces.  The conflict ends with the pro-bioists joining the Tsubar’ey polity and the anti-bioists agreeing to complete surrender and disarmament.  The pro-bioist Starwalkers will eventually evolve into the Tsubar’ey Starflyer phyla of bioships.

65 million years ago: The Sixteenth Tsubar’ey Civilization migrates to the core of the Andromeda Galaxy and becomes insular and isolationist in nature.

64.7 million years ago: The Sixteenth Tsubar’ey Civilization encounters surviving communities of Dunwalli and Kelvara.  These communities, however, have lost much of their technology and knowledge.

62.5 million years ago: The Dunwalli and Kelvara communities of the Andromeda Core are absorbed into what will become the Inner Andromeda Corpus.

55 million years ago: The Sixteenth Tsubar’ey Civilization achieves cultural and social stability that will last until the present day.

39 million years ago: The Seventeenth Tsubar’ey Civilization encounters the Swarmind, a hive minded symbiotic association of arthroform species highly skilled in biotechnology.  The Tsubar’ey will foster their skills until the Swarmind surpasses their own.

37.5 million years ago: The Swarmind upload themselves into their bio-mechanical ship-bodies to eventually become the Tsubar’ey Swarmships.

35 million years ago: The Tsubar’ey Godnet seeds the Eighteenth Tsubar’ey Civilization.

26-23 million years ago: The Eleventh Tsubar’ey Intergalactic Migration, a partial double migration from Triangulum to the Andromeda and Milky Way Galaxies.

24 million years ago: The Nineteenth Tsubar'ey Civilization is founded in the Andromeda Galaxy.

23 million years ago: The Twentieth Tsubar'ey Civilization is founded in the Milky Way Galaxy, while the Nineteenth Tsubar'ey Civilization enters into a formal alliance with the Fifteenth Tsubar’ey Civilization.

22 million years ago:  The Tsubar’ey of the Orion Corpus encounter the Isopa, a symbiotic interspecies interstellar polity on Jovian worlds, and who possess crystalline-based technology.  The Isopa are eventually absorbed into the Orion Corpus and the two species often operate in close partnership with each other.

13 million years ago: The Tsubar’ey encounter a Su-Seer orbital habitat around a Stephensonian world along a newly established trade rout.  The Starflyers initiate contact with the So-Seer and prepare them for membership in the Corpus.  The So-Seer will eventually become prominent members of the Corpus and close associates and allies of the Isopa, with some even being provolved to have symbiotic relationships with each other.

3.2 million years ago: The Tsubar’ey detect the signals of what will become the Solarian Architect civilization within their territory.  When the species reaches the proper level of development they will be contacted by the Corpus.

3.19 million years ago: The Solarian Architects begin construction of a Dyson sphere in their home system.  Though members of the greater Tsubar’ey polity, they are isolationist and prefer to keep to themselves.

2.5 million years ago: The Tsubar’ey arrive in the Local Neighborhood and come to settle AX Microscopii, and later encounter what will become the Aagüla homeworld around Gliese 783 B during a “Cambrian Explosion” type of biological event.

2.1 million years ago: The Tsubar’ey of the Orion Corpus encounter the Nygea’prel, an ammonia-based Jovian species who will eventually become major members of the Corpus.

2.0 million years ago: The Tsubar’ey successfully provolve the Aagüla from primitive organisms in the methane seas of their homeworld.

216,000 years ago: The Aagüla begin to colonize worlds around other stars for the first time, and are contacted by the Tsubar’ey.  The Aagüla believe the Tsubar’ey to be gods and seek to appease them.

40,000 years ago: The Bene’Artimian begin interstellar colonization.

36,000 years ago: The Tsubar’ey contact the Bene’Artimian and begin trade negotiations.

34,000 years ago: The Bene’Artimian join the Tsubar’ey Corpus and continue their methodical expansion into the surrounding space.

4000 BCE: The Aagüla, realizing that the Tsubar’ey are not gods, begin their ultimately misguided and failed war for independence.  This war eventually draws in the Satlek and Oswagii and soon escalates into what becomes know as the Local War.

4000-2300 BCE: The Local War.  The Satlek side with the Aagüla and the Oswagii side with the Tsubar’ey.  The Satlek are no match for the technological superiority of the Tsubar’ey and are forced to surrender.  The Tsubar’ey do not force the Satlek to make concessions and actually open diplomatic relations with the previously ignored species.  The interstellar colonies of the Aagüla are dismantled and they are forced to accept Tsubar’ey observation to curb any future rash behavior.

2250 BCE: The Aagüla begin to re-establish their interstellar presence.

70,000 years ahead: The Fifteenth and Nineteenth Tsubar’ey Civilizations achieve a level of enlightenment through science and technology left behind by Angelics and Dunwalli in the Andromeda Galaxy, which is shared with the Eighteenth and Twentieth Tsubar’ey Civilization through the Godnet.

110,000 years ahead: The Fifteenth and Nineteenth Tsubar’ey Civilizations achieve mass-ascension of some form and vanish from the Andromeda Galaxy.  Some believe they created an artificial universe of their own, into which they entered to explore, while others believe they merged with the Tsubar’ey Godnet.  All Tsubar’ey are made aware of the event simultaneously through the Godnet and mass migrations are begun.  The Eighteenth Civilization abandons the Triangulum Galaxy and migrates to Andromeda, while the Twentieth Civilization simultaneously abandons the Milky Way Galaxy to re-colonize the Triangulum Galaxy.

0.11-3.11 million years ahead: The Twelfth Tsubar’ey Intergalactic Migration, a dual full migration from Triangulum to the Andromeda Galaxy and from the Milky Way to the Triangulum Galaxy.

520,000 years ahead: The Medu’ocua civilization arises in the Andromeda Galaxy, and will eventually be contacted by the Tsubar’ey and become important members of the Intergalactic Corpus.

2.1 million years ahead: The Twenty-first Tsubar’ey Civilization is founded in the Andromeda Galaxy.

3.1 million years ahead: The Twenty-second Tsubar’ey Civilization is founded in the Triangulum Galaxy.

13-16 million years ahead: The Thirteenth Tsubar’ey Intergalactic Migration, a partial migration from Andromeda to the Milky Way Galaxy.

16 million years ahead: The Twenty-third Tsubar’ey Civilization is founded in the Milky Way Galaxy.

22 million years ahead: The Tsubar’ey found the Intergalactic Corpus across the Milky Way, Andromeda and Triangulum Galaxies literally overnight.  Through the Corpus the Tsubar’ey Godnet will guide the evolution of countless species and eventually comes to encompass all galaxies of the Local Group.  Though founded by the Tsubar’ey, Magni, Eiyogsha, Humans, Medu’ocua and other species play prominent roles in the polity and enjoy all of its benefits, including the ability to achieve ascension into the Godnet.

26 million years ahead: Many Tsubar’ey ascend and merge with the Godnet.

59 million years ahead: Many Tsubar’ey upload their consciousnesses into immortal ship-bodies.

75 million years ahead: The entire Magni species ascends and becomes one with the Godnet, serving as its administrative avatars throughout the Corpus.

79 million years ahead: The last living Human descendant, Adam, is uploaded into a ship-mind, officially ending Human biological evolution.

88 million years ahead: Cephalopods begin to colonize land on Earth.

100 million years ahead: Earth suffers a major extinction level event, wiping out 90% of all species.

140 million years ahead: The remaining Tsubar’ey completely merge with their Godnet, operating as overseers of the Intergalactic Corpus.

145 million years ahead: A sapient species evolves on Earth from terrestrial cephalopods.  They will be observed by the Godnet and welcomed into the Corpus after achieving interstellar travel.

149 million years ahead: The Nyx-plyxyog species achieves interstellar travel in the Large Magellanic Cloud and perceive the Intergalactic Corpus as a threat.  They will be belligerents of the Corpus and attempt to sabotage it at every opportunity.

150 million years ahead: The Nyx-plyxyog send an expedition through the Corpus Wormhole Network to various stars that were once in the Local Neighborhood and ultimately encounter and deceive members of the Terragenic Cephalapoids into reveling the location of Earth.  There they learn of the Enemy and the ancient ArcWays.  In a final act of defiance against the Corpus they establish contact with the Enemy and offer their entire species as hosts to the malevolent consciousness.  The Terragenic Cephalapoids learn of the deception and alert the Godnet.

150-152 million years ahead: The Godnet and the Enemy struggle over control of the Corpus until the Godnet finally eradicates the Enemy.

153 million years ahead: All sentient beings within the Local Group from this point onward are full citizens of the Intergalactic Corpus, with evolution throughout the Local Group deliberately guided by the Godnet.

207 million years ahead: The Intergalactic Corpus achieves a mass ascension of virtually all sentient life across the Local Group.  Countless trillions upon trillions merge with the Godnet and presumably leave to explore extradimensional space.  Several uploaded ship-minds are left behind to watch over and maintain those that wished to remain in organic bodies.

219 million years ahead: The majority of the ship-minds leave the Local Group, with most of them heading toward the Virgo Cluster in search of advanced civilizations.  Several ship-minds elect to remain behind, and among them is Adam, who will seed life on a barren world and observe its evolution.

412 million years ahead: The first ancestors of the Adamoids evolve on Adam’s World.

419.5 million years ahead: The first true Adamoids evolve and enter into the guidance of their ship-mind overseer.

420 million years ahead: Adamoids develop agriculture and written language.

420.01 million years ahead: Adamoids develop interstellar travel.

422.3 million years ahead: Adamoids become the dominant polity in the Milky Way Galaxy with little competition.

426 million years ahead: Adamoids have spread across most of the galactic habitable zone.

432 million years ahead: Adamoids control most of the Milky Way and have begun to send probes out to explore the rest of the Local Group.

441 million years ahead: Adamoids have colonies across the Local Group.

450 million years ahead: Adamoids have become the dominant species across the totality of the Local Group.

650 million years ahead: The Adamoid civilization enters into a period of decline.

670 million years ahead: The Adamoid civilization collapses, but it will leave behind countless terraformed worlds and megastructures.  On one of these worlds intelligent life will eventually evolve continuing the cycle of civilization in the Local Group until the ultimate end of the Universe itself.

Updates

November 7, 2006

• Added an updated image of the Tsubar'ey, by Neal Aaron.

September 8, 2006:  I've finally gotten to work on the second and final part of this entry.  I'm only a week or two late on it!  But I managed to get it done, as well as having added the Tsubar'ey centered timeline.

August 30, 2006:  Began work on this page, and managed to complete the Shostak Entry section.

“To you who have been cast out by your oppressors:

You will find safety and rest here.  We have listened to your voices and have come to know of your plight.  You are a small and frail people but we are great and mighty.  Under our shadow you will know no fear outside of us.

We are the Tsubar’ey and we welcome you children of Sol.”

The colonists were in complete shock.  Not only had they found alien life, but this new species was a technologically advanced species that was already well aware of Humans and had been studying them for many years.  What was more shocking was that they seemed willing to welcome them with open arms (however many of them they may have had).  The aliens were from a gas giant known as Tsubar,  orbited by a Hebean Type moon named Tartessos.  After settling on this moon the colonists were offered terraforming aid from the Tsubar’ey scientists.  Until the terraforming could be completed the Tsubar’ey lent the colonists a functional Dyson tree for habitation.  The colonists learned that the tree was an abandoned scientific outpost used by the Tsubar’ey over eight million years ago to study the moon up until the facility could no longer be adapted or modified, becoming outdated four and a half million years ago.

One of the first things the Tsubar’ey did was to erect a communication capture net of nano-satellites around the planet.  The net operated in high orbit of the moon and disrupted any radio traffic leaving the moon into unintelligible noise rendering the colony invisible to the Dominion, on the off chance that the corrupt polity would attempt to learn whether or not their Exiles had indeed survived.  The colonists were more than welcome to have their presence hidden from the Dominion and were thankful to know that the people who exiled them would presume the colony was a failure.  The Tsubar’ey, very much aware of the activities of the Dominion, had no desire to get themselves involved in what would surly be an open conflict between the two species.  With the aid of the Tsubar’ey the Human colonists were able to reactivate some of the dormant monitoring systems within the Dyson tree and were able to use them to coordinate the terraforming effort.  The Tsubar’ey themselves were also able to gather first hand data on Humans, their technology, and their environment like never before and many of the finest Tsubar’ey minds were involved in the project. The curiosity of the Tsubar'ey required that, as a condition for their aid in terraforming the moon, they would have access to all technical data that the Humans possessed and that Tsubar’ey scientists be allowed direct access to the terraforming project and live Humans for non-invasive study.

The Growth of A Relationship
A significant portion of the original colonists were xenobiologists and genetic engineers who had been deemed heretics and threats to the Reformed Church.  With access to Tsubar’ey biologically-based technology, and even some of their scientific notes, the colonists began what would ultimately become a project that would span several generations.  They began a long term study of the advanced Tsubar’ey technology with the hopes of ultimately learning it secrets.  As relations between the Colonists and the Tsubar’ey grew, the colonists were provided access to what was at that period of time obsolete Tsubar’ey schematics and technologies that would truly revolutionize the Humans' lives.  With the help of this Tsubar’ey technical data the first fully reusable space access organism was eventually grown.  Another project which saw early success was the construction of buoyant shrub-cities in the atmosphere of Tartessos, which provided not only places of habitation that put less strain on the young and still fragile environment, but would also provided a cheap crop in the form of a fruiting body that grew from the floors and walls of the cities themselves.  Eventually the colonists were able to grow everything they needed with their adapted biotechnology, living in vast and lush city-forests and traveling the system in living transport vessels.

Following the initial completion of the terraforming effort, the ancient Dyson tree was converted into a public museum for a time, and then eventually became a joint Human/Tsubar’ey embassy.  Portions of the tree were re-converted for Tsubar’ey habitation, becoming the first point of continuous cultural exchange between the colonists and the Tsubar’ey.  Although it took decades, eventually Humans were allowed to immigrate to Tsubar’ey inhabited Dyson trees, where the two cultures - although vastly alien to one another - began to grow closer.  In time, when the Tsubar’ey sent a request to the League of Worlds for the ACM and the establishment of an ArcWay, the Human colony of Tartessos was apparently considered a Tsubar’ey protectorate.  The colony today enjoys joint membership under both the Tsubar’ey and the League, due partially to foster good relations with the Tsubar’ey and because the exact nature of Tsubar’ey politics may never be fully understood by Humanity, which keeps the League from making statements as to the actual affiliation of Tartessos itself.

Tsubar'ey A & P
The Tsubar’ey metabolism is based on a hydrogen/methane cycle, which forms the basis for most life on Tsubar.  They get the oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus and other elements they need for their biological processes from consuming other Tsubarian creatures.  The basis of the Tsubar’ey food-chain are airborne phytoplankton-like creatures.  They have aspects of both radial and bilateral symmetry.  From above a juvenile Tsubar'ey would look completely round in shape, but as they age they develop more pronounced fin and tail structures.  The Tsubar'ey are actually colony-organisms, with each "individual" made up of hundreds of separate creatures, all sharing nutrients and nerve impulses.  The Tsubar'ey employ multiple symmetries in their tentacles,  possessing an outer ring of sensory tentacles, multiple clusters of manipulative or defensive tentacles, and a central ring of feeding tentacles surrounding the digestive tract.  The Tsubar'ey locomote by the use of many undulating fin-like structures around the perimeter of their body; these structures continuously beat and help facilitate gas-exchange for the Tsubar'ey.  They also give the Tsubar'ey a stately gliding motion, as well as allowing them to hover in a stationary position and change direction rapidly.

The Tsubar'ey have two types of sensory tentacles; short feathery tentacles sensitive to "touch" and "pressure" which help the Tsubar'ey navigate, and longer chemically sensitive tentacles analogous to "taste" or "smell" receptors.  The defensive tentacles occur in groups of five and are the longest and thickest tentacles, covered in hair-like structures that inject painful burning chemicals into would-be predators.  The tentacles themselves are whip-like, posses few nerve endings and are easily lost and regenerated by the Tsubar'ey.  Also, they do not posses any grasping ability and cannot hold onto objects.  The defensive tentacles are also completely retractable and can be pulled up completely into the body.  The manipulative tentacles occur in groups of three and are covered in muscular grasping pads similar to the ends of the toes of some climbing creatures on Earth, allowing them to manipulate incredibly small objects despite their immense size.  Each manipulative tentacle contains a miniature version of a central nervous system with sensitivity to touch and electric currents; in some clades the pads are also sensitive to something similar to taste.  The feeding tentacles encircle the "mouth" of the Tsubar'ey and are fully retractable, possessing stinging cells as do the defensive tentacles, but are also prehensile and touch-sensitive like the manipulative tentacles.  The tentacles incapacitate prey and bring it up to the Tsubar'ey mouth.

Due to the highly de-centralized nature of the Tsubar'ey nervous system there is much debate as to where the Tsubar'ey "consciousness" resides, as they posses a brain, though it is not even in direct control of the Tsubar'ey limbs; each cluster seemingly is capable of operating both independently and in full concert with each other with equal ease.  The Tsubar'ey perceive the world very differently than Humans.  They posses six or seven major senses, depending on the clade, and at least five "minor" external senses.  The major senses are classified as radar, sonar (handled by their own sensory organs), wind-touch, electro-sensitivity, "smest" (smell and taste, handled by the sensory tentacles), feel-touch and feel-taste (handled by the manipulative tentacles).  The minor senses are pressure, radio-hearing, sound-hearing, photo-sensitivity and balance.  Radar is facilitated by large and usually black (which can vary with clade) lidless transceiver "eyes" located in a cluster on the front of the Tsubar'ey body.  The shape of the eye-cluster can vary from clade to clade, but the most common arrangement is a shape vaguely resembling a human smile; a notable exception is the so-called "frowning Tsubar'ey", named for obvious reasons.

Sonar is facilitated by indentations located along the sides of the Tsubar'ey body.  Tsubar'ey typically grow more of these "ears" as they age and, depending on the clade, the age of a Tsubar'ey can be estimated by the number of "ears" and the shape of the body.  They possess a structure similar to a lateral line in fish on Earth, allowing them to sense local changes in pressure; although it can be used to sense approaching predators or prey it is more often used to gage elevation.  The Tsubar'ey posses a single ear on the front of their bodies, sensitive to sound and remarkably similar to the ears of various Terran species.  The range of hearing and usefulness of the ear varies among the clades, ranging from something quite acute in some to being nearly vestigial in others.  They have a large electromagnetic-sensitive organ covering their entire upper body which function somewhat similar to the pineal organ in some primitive Terrestrial species, with the exception of primarily being used for navigation instead of metabolic regulation.  The organ is compounded and consists of a radio-sensitive array just below the skin and several smaller photo-sensitive organs that range from infra-red to a portion of the visible range.  The radio sensitive organ has been modified in some clades to be extremely sensitive in facilitating communications.

Tsubar’ey begin their lives a polyp-like creature attached to the underside of their parent’s body.  For the first few years of their life they receive all nutrients from their parent.  Eventually the polyp detaches and becomes a free floating form.  At this point the young Tsubar’ey is raised largely by the herd.  Due to the interconnectedness of the parent and offspring there is some debate as to the nature of the relationship between parent and child.  Some consider it possible that nerve connections allow for the direct transmission of information, experience, emotions, and even specific memories, while others dismiss such claims as pseudoscience.  The young will live with the parent Tsubar’ey for many years until it reaches maturity.  Parent Tsubar’ey typically congregate into pods and rear their children at least semi-collectively.  Tsubar’ey are known to “lactate” by producing a substance from their undersides known informally as tsumilk.  Tsumilk is high in calories and contains chemicals that stimulate the brains of the developing Tsubar’ey larval colony.  After twenty or thirty years the young Tsubar’ey is weaned off the tsumilk and joins a juvenile pod of its own.  Sometimes particularly small juvenile Tsubar’ey in the same pod will undergo a merging.  This is accomplished by the two, or sometimes more, Tsubar’ey shedding the protective “skin” of the colony and allowing a direct transfer of individual organisms between the colonies until they are physically joined, effectively creating a new individual better able to defend itself.  This is usually begun by flying to the center of the pod where they will be protected by the others.  Then the Tsubar’ey that wish to join will begin to affectionately caress each other until their bodies begin to produce an enzyme that digests their own “skin”.  Once the skin is digested the Tsubar’ey will begin the merging.  The process can take many hours, during which the merging Tsubar’ey are completely helpless and dependant on the help and protection of their pod.

The actual mating of Tsubar’ey is a long and complicated process, as the Tsubar’ey are highly evolved colony-organisms.  The process can be likened to the mating of eusocial insect colonies on Earth, with the Tsubar’ey producing what appear to be much smaller versions of their “normal” reproductive polyps that eventually break off into semi-autonomous medusa forms.  These medusa-males, known as Tsudron’ey, live symbiotically with their parent colonies for a time, cleaning food from the parent’s tentacles, all the while growing a long fatty “tail” down from their “head”.  Eventually the Tsubar’ey and its accompanying Tsudron’ey swarm find a Tsubar’ey that has entered the “receptive” phase.  The Tsudron’ey swarm the receptive Tsubar’ey and attach themselves permanently inserting their “tails” into the oviducts of the Tsubar’ey.  The Tsudron’ey will spend the rest of their lives attached to this particular Tsubar’ey and most of the body except for the brain and testis are metabolized by the Tsubar’ey.  The brain itself will become integrated into the rest of the colony, prompting speculation that mating is also used to pass on information and strengthen group bonds.  After the Tsudron’ey has become part of the Tsubar’ey colony its genetic material can be used at any point by the Tsubar’ey, and offspring might not be born for several years, while sometimes a Tsubar’ey will elect not to use a particular Tsudron’ey at all.  Something that is occasionally a source of confusion to Humans is that even though the Tsudron’ey are all male the swarming and receptive phases do not correspond to the concept of gender as it does in Humans. Tsubar’ey are perfectly capable of both swarming and being receptive at the same time, although Tsudron’ey will not fertilize their parent colony, or a closely related one for that matter.

One of the most visible aspects of Tsubar’ey society and biology is their own self-modification into various clades for different functions.  The interesting thing about Tsubar’ey is there does not seem to be any “baseline” or “original form” Tsubar’ey, except on their lost colonies.  For the most part every individual is specialized in some way or another.  The main Tsubar’ey clades are intellectual clade, the operator clade, the observer clade, the environmental specialist clades, the technical specialist clades and the space-fairing clades.  Many of the clades are inter-fertile with each other, the only exception being the space-fairing clades who, while inter-fertile among each other, cannot reproduce normally with other Tsubar’ey clades.  This produces an endless combination of Tsubar’ey even though usually one clade or another will be dominant; there is often a mixing of features.

The members of the intellectual clade are literally the brains of the Tsubar’ey society, coordinating the efforts of all the other clades, and can be found supervising any Tsubar’ey operation within their territory.  They operate as everything from leaders to scientists and provide Tsubar’ey society with is thirst for knowledge.

The operator clade typically has many clusters of long strong manipulator tentacles.  They typically perform most of the actual labor in Tsubar’ey society and are considered its foundation.  The operator clade are the most dedicated of the clades often unwilling to abandon a task until it is completed, sometimes at great danger to themselves.

The observer clade has highly developed sensory organs and are the eyes and ears of Tsubar’ey society.  Whenever the Tsubar’ey encounter a new planet or species it the observer clade is always sent in first.  The observers also posses enhanced memories that are completely photographic by human standards.  The Tsubar’ey also use the observer clade as living libraries, each individual memorizing tremendous amounts of knowledge.  These three are primarily found operating together in “triads”, which seem to serve as the primary social unit for most of Tsubar’ey society.  Typically a Tsubar’ey pod is led by a triumvirate of these thee clades.

The environmental specialist clades are designed to survive in environments that would normally be hostile to Tsubar’ey physiology.  Some of these are designed for high pressure environments such as the lower levels of Tsubar itself or the suitable temperature levels of ammonia giants.  Another group of clades are specialized to spend their entire lives in the zero gravity environments of the Dyson Trees and the Tsubar’ey bio-ships.  The technical specialist clades are designed to perform very specialized tasks and poses some of the most distinctive modifications of any clade.  The most prominent technical clades are hydrogen-miner clade, attendant clade, speaker clade and pilot clade.  The hydrogen-miner clade is more of a sub-species and has been found on almost all of the Tsubar’ey colonies deposited by the T’zeche indicating their original provolution was intended to aid the T’zeche in mining hydrogen from gas-giants.  On some of these planets the “normal” and miner Tsubar’ey have evolved into different species and on others one or the other has become extinct.  On most Tsubar’ey worlds, however, the two clades remain closely related to each other through regular interbreeding between clades.

The attendant clades are actually the sub-clades of the intellectual, operator and observer clades who are “linked” to each other through permanent bio-radio relays and operate as a singe individual.  The attendants will be assigned or contracted out to an individual or triad working on a specific project for assistance.  If a group of intellectual clade attendants are chosen it is usually for an operation that will require advanced trouble-shooting or a theoretical approach.  If it is a group of operator attendants they will be used in highly physical projects or difficult field research.  If they are observer clade they will be used for information or investigation purposes.  The speaker clade have their upper electromagnetic sensitive organ modified into a powerful deep space transceiver allowing for high powered narrow beam transmissions to other planets in their system and to neighboring star systems.  The pilot clade is designed with the specific purpose of controlling a living Tsubar’ey spacecraft.

The spacer clades are the most distinctive of any of the clades.  They all posses a hard outer shell of silicon carbide, as opposed to silicate or calcium carbonate, which they must molt, as well as fully retractable tentacles and many jointed legs around the perimeter of their bodies.  These legs are actually modified sensory tentacles and are used to hold onto objects or each other in space.  The clades have organic maneuvering thrusters along the sides of their bodies where the sonar organs would have been located in a typical Tsubar’ey, as sonar is useless in space.  The space faring clades also posses an organic plasma-impulse drive in the back of their body that vaguely resembles something of a fish or lobster tail.  Since the space-fairing clades live in the hostile vacuum of space they must be protected by their hard shell at all times.  This makes them incapable of merging and means mating requires specialized anatomical structures,  and must be performed internally.  Each spacer Tsubar’ey posses at least one Tsudron’ey duct and receptacle which they use for reproduction.  During mating the two spacer Tsubar’ey latch onto each other with their jointed legs and they both exchange Tsudron’ey during the mating.  The spacer Tsubar’ey spend a longer period in the polyp phase attached to their parent Tsubar’ey than their counterparts in other clade groupings.  Spacer Tsubar’ey have their own intellectual, operator and observer clades, as well as several technical specialty clades.  The three most prominent specialist clades are the space-orchard clade, sail-weaver clade and the asteroid-miner clade.  The orchard clade have photosynthetic bacteria growing over what would be their long range radio organ and produce high energy buds or “fruit-batteries” for the other spacer clades.  The sail-weaver clade weaves giant sails propelled by solar energy or Tsubar’ey laser arrays throughout their systems.  The miner clade have specialized tentacles with tips designed to penetrate asteroids.  The tentacles then secrete enzymes that digest the internal material of the asteroid which are stored by the Tsubar’ey.  Other spacer Tsubar’ey will then “milk” the digested minerals from the miner Tsubar’ey for their own nourishment or the construction of Dyson Trees or bioships.

Tsubar'ey Culture
An interesting aspect of Tsubar’ey culture is the incredibly public nature of Tsubar’ey mating rituals, sometimes known to involve several thousand Tsubar’ey and to be broadcast live across their homeworld,  at times even to their interstellar colonies along their deep-space relays.  One especially large mating was attended by some of the most prominent members of the Tsubar’ey and was broadcast across the League of Worlds, providing an interesting and unparalleled insight into the enigmatic Tsubar’ey.  It was one of the most watched broadcasts in the League, having several billion viewers, and also watched on the Satlek and Oswagii homeworlds.  The event was both elaborate and festive.  The Tsubar’ey exchanged gifts, were entertained by feats of Tsubar’ey “acrobatics” and had several of the prominent attendees give “speeches” before the actual mating.  The mating itself was highly ritualized and structured and in some ways resembled more of an elaborate, though sensual, dance or some kind of orgiastic rite once found in early Human cultures.  On the other end of their society is the extremely private nature of death among the Tsubar’ey, especially considering the rarity of the event among their people.  Only the closest family and friends of the dead Tsubar’ey are allowed to attend a Tsubar’ey funeral.  For this reason there is very little known about Tsubar’ey death rituals or the Tsubar’ey perception of death.  Only three humans have even been openly invited to a Tsubar’ey funeral, although it is rumored there have been a larger number of private invitations.  Of the Humans openly invited, only one was invited specifically for scientific observational purposes, specifically by the now deceased Tsubar’ey scientist, with the hopes of facilitating a greater understanding of Tsubar’ey culture.

The basic Tsubar’ey social unit is the triad, usually made up of a different Tsubar’ey from each clade.  The triads are then grouped into pods, which are then under the planetary polities, with those being under the system level polity.  The Tsubar’ey appear to posses a number of Triumvirates from the pod to system level, and sometimes over specific projects or segments of society.  Little is know about their selection process for government but most have suggested it is either democratic or meritocratic, or perhaps some combination of the two.  There is little indication as to just how hierarchal the Tsubar’ey are as many of the political sub-units seem to operate independently of each other and with great autonomy while at the same time having a great deal of uniformity throughout all of Tsubar’ey society.

An interesting aspect of Tsubar’ey culture is their attitude toward space travel.  Almost every living Tsubar’ey has traveled to another planet besides the world of their birth, and many of these have made interstellar voyages and returned from them.  Due to the extremely long life spans of the Tsubar’ey, which seem almost immortal by human standards, they rarely employ suspended animation or any similar technology, instead taking the time to contemplate and meditate on their destination and their lives before the journey.  The Tsubar’ey even employ interstellar travel as a sort of coming of age ceremony.  Once a Tsubar’ey becomes old enough to fend for itself outside of its juvenile pod it begins making preparations for an interstellar journey to a neighboring system.  In each of their neighboring systems, the Tsubar’ey have set up institutes of training and higher learning, analogous to universities in Human cultures but in some ways more like monasteries.  After spending centuries in meditation and preparation the Tsubar’ey arrive at one of the learning centers and begin being trained in everything they will need to know to function in Tsubar’ey society.  They will also pick a specialization at this point and spend many years in this training.  After the training period is complete the Tsubar’ey is given three or four choices.  They may choose to remain behind in the system they are in and even instruct other young Tsubar’ey.  They can choose to return to their home system and put their training to use.  They can travel to yet another system and possibly receive more knowledge and training.  Or, if the opportunity presents itself, they can take part in setting up a whole new colony.

Often when a new colony is established by the Tsubar’ey it is part of a “spiritual quest” in which, according to the Tsubar’ey, they seek the truth and beauty in the universe.  Due to these “esoteric” motives, they often choose unlikely places for colonization.  One of the more wildly embraced quests among the Tsubar’ey is the search for their own lost colonies set up by either their own ancestors during a previous civilization across their 300 million years of history, or the seeded by the T’zeche hundreds of millions of years earlier.  These colonies are considered part of their heritage and highly valued by the Tsubar’ey.  Most of these contacts are peaceful with the inhabitants welcoming each other with open tentacles, but as with the Amasha and Earth there have been serious conflicts that have resulted in massive loss of life on both sides.  It is due to this that the Tsubar’ey maintain what can be described as a military fleet that escorts all prospective colonies, to defend them from possible threats.

The Tsubar’ey view their polity, the Corpus, as being a kind of greater organism, similar to how the Tsubar’ey are colony organisms themselves.  They are very cooperative and dedicated to their tasks and view every thing from mining to leadership as an equal service to the greater organism.  It is not yet understood what roles actual politics and economics play in Tsubar’ey society, though they do seem to posses some form of hierarchal command structure within their collective society,  with many operations that could be considered industries.  The Tsubar’ey have a benevolent attitude towards alien species, the most obvious example of the Tartessos’ey, Humans that have not only been given access to Tsubar’ey biotechnology but exist to some degree within the Tsubar’ey polity itself.

Tsubar'ey Technology
All known Tsubar’ey technology is in some way biological.  Everything from their spacecraft to cities are organic and alive.  An interesting aspect of Tsubar’ey technology is that, unlike Humans or other industrial societies which are recognizable by producing many uniform and mass-produced items, each piece of Tsubar’ey technology is unique.  Each piece of technology is bred and grown for its specific function, and throughout life it adapts to its user and their needs.  Due to this most Tsubar’ey items and vessels do not fit well into traditional organizational schemes that work for organizing Human vessels.

Tsubar’ey cities appear to be a heavily engineered form of tsugasso mat that grows into enclosures large enough for entire pods of Tsubar’ey.  These tsucities have places to live, eat, meet, conduct business, and mate for the Tsubar’ey.  The entire tsucity is “powered” by photosynthesis.  Giant lily pad shaped “leaves” grow from the top of the tsucity and provide the city-organism with nutrients.  The “buildings” and “streets” of the tsucity are lit by bio-luminescence that fills the city with an eerie bluish glow.  The tsucity has a number of bio-computer and bio-communicator terminals that are capable of projecting radio and sonar “images” for the Tsubar’ey allowing easy communication across the planet.  The Tsubar’ey can either journey between tsucities themselves or ride inside giant transport creatures modified from skygrazers.  These creatures are many times the size of an adult Tsubar’ey and contain many hollow “pouches” that the Tsubar’ey can ride inside of.  The creatures do not require pilots and travel along genetically pre-programmed routes.  The transport creatures feed on tsukrill and tsuplankton as they travel, sustaining themselves without need to stop along the journey.  Yet another modified transport creature also possesses biological rocket engines and can reach low-orbit; these creatures regularly transverse Tsubar, connecting the entire planet.  The most noticeable feat of Tsubar’ey bio-engineering are the Tsubar’ey Dyson trees.  These “trees” are grown from asteroids, comets and even some of Tsubar's moonlets.  The roots of the tree go deep into the asteroid and draw minerals up from it to nourish the tree itself.  The trees branches grow large “bubbles” that can hold entire tsucities.  The Tsubar’ey have moved several Dyson trees into low orbit and used genetically engineered tsuspiders to construct long tethers, creating Tsubarian space elevators.  Tsubar’ey also produce so-called astrochickens which scout out resources in their home system and other solar systems that the Tsubar’ey have colonized.  The Tsubar’ey astrochickens are quite large and are fully autonomous, and are capable of scouting an entire solar system.  They are even capable of repairing or replicating themselves if necessary.  The astrochickens are considered intelligent life forms by the Tsubar’ey and receive full “Human rights” under Tartessos’ey law.

Tsubar’ey ships come in several phyla and clades of their own.  There are two major phyla of bioships, the swarmships and the starflyers.  Swarmships are eusocial in nature and have giant, literal motherships that not only serve as command centers for the Tsubar’ey but also produce new swarmships.  These motherships are massive vessels with Tsubar’ey crews numbering in the thousands and some of which have dozens of pilot clade Tsubar’ey onboard.  Motherships are generally mushroom shaped with the propulsion system located at the base of the “stalk” and a ramscoop located in the center of the “head”.

Swarmships themselves have several castes similar to eusocial insects of Earth these are primarily the tug-caste, maintenance-caste, scout-caste and escort-caste.  The tug-caste are used to carry and help maneuver larger, usually starflyer or Dyson tree, vessels that travel with the swarmfleet.  The maintenance-caste are used to repair and re-supply the ships traveling in the swarmfleet.  The scout-caste are typically used by colonization swarmfleets to explore the system they are interested in.  The escort-caste are used in the event that the Tsubar’ey encounter hostilities in the system they arrive in.  The starflyers as a phyla are less organized and coordinated than the swarmships and are generally solitary creatures.  The starflyer clades are the antimatter tankers, hydrogen tankers, freighters, space-liners and research vessels.  A common feature of these ships is their crew sections.  The crew section houses the massive brain of the ship to which the pilot is directly connected.  The rest of the crew live in this section and work in various parts of the ship.  The back part of the crew has what appears to be large compound eyes which are in fact small greenhouses that grow food for the crew and provide a surplus source of energy for the ship.  Many starflyers can also support vast sail arrays produced by the sail-weaver clade, some of which are used for interstellar propulsion.  Starflyer bioships reproduce sexually and generally in a manner similar to the spacer Tsubar’ey clades.

The antimatter tankers have a unique and very utilitarian design.  The ships use a matter/antimatter reactor fed by their own cargo for swift journeys across the solar system.  The ships can separate into crew, drive and cargo sections, each of which can separate and operate semi-autonomously from each other in the event of an emergency.  These sections have many nerve, supply, and access connections between them, and the ship functions as a single organism most of the time.  The crew section is heavily armored with a thick rounded impact shield covering the “nose”.  The main drive section houses the main reactor and the hydrogen storage tanks as well as the propulsion assemblies and a radiation shield connected to the neck section.  The neck section is a long structure made up of nutrient, nerve, access and antimatter transfer connections between the main drive and the cargo section.  The cargo section itself contains several pod-like structures which house the antimatter.  These pods along with the entire cargo section can be jettisoned in the event of a containment failure.  Hydrogen tankers bare a passing resemblance to antimatter tankers except that the cargo section is located between the crew and drive sections, which do not have separate propulsion assemblies, and the ship does not have the cargo section separated by a long “neck”.  These vessels also have a generally les “armored” appearance than the antimatter tankers and some are sleeker and less utilitarian in design.  These ships are generally associated with fueling large vessels preparing for interstellar voyages.  They also are used for trade with humans and other species as the Tsubar’ey are ideally suited to harvest hydrogen from gas-giants and it is a valuable fuel for space-fairing species.  The freighter design is usually more compact than either of these designs and generally has internal cargo chambers rather than external pods.  Freighters generally transport minerals, food, or manufactured goods and as such are much safer than the antimatter or hydrogen tankers.  The command section of the freighter is generally sleeker and many of the short-range ships do not posses impact shield and instead rely on shipboard weapons systems.  Space liners come in two varieties, interplanetary and interstellar.

Interplanetary spaceliners are sleek vessels with long somewhat conical impact shields and a combined crew and passenger section without any accompanying cargo section.  Interstellar spaceliners are large vessels nearly half the size of the swarmship motherships.  They are specifically designed to sustain their passengers for the several hundred year journey to a Tsubar’ey colony in another system.  As the crew will spend almost the entire voyage in meditation the food and life-support is not what it would be for a fully active crew.  The passenger area is divided among several communal and private meditation chambers as well as chambers for feeding and recreation.  Tsubar’ey rarely socialize on interstellar voyages and they do not conduct business or mate while on such trips at all.  Some interstellar transports have extensive libraries onboard for study while other have gardens of skytrees and tsugasso for relaxation.  As the crews are conscious  for the entirety of the trip unlike human sublight vessels they often make stops when they encounter a rouge planet or other deep space phenomena some of which have become points of interest to the Tsubar’ey over millions of years.  The Tsubar’ey research vessel clade is one of the most diverse ship clades in their entire fleet.  Each vessel is designed with a specific mission in mind and are capable of operating for many thousands of years.  The most distinguishing features of the research vessel clade are their radar eyes and their long sensory antenna that they can extend fro their bodies.  Some research vessels also possess manipulatory appendages and are capable of taking samples.  Several models of research vessel are capable of atmospheric flight, even in the atmospheres of terrestrial planets.  After establishing contact with the League the Tsubar’ey dispatched several of these vessels to many systems controlled by the League for long term study.  The Tsubar’ey have even been accused of using such vessels equipped with stealth technology within the League,  but the Tsubar’ey leadership denies any such accusations.

The Tsubar'ey and Their Neighbors
The Tsubar’ey have been curious about Humans since first detecting our radio transmissions hundreds of years ago.  They studied and cataloged the transmissions and even sent expeditions to our system to make closer observations.  The Tsubar’ey also watched in horror as the Dominion seized control of the airwaves.  They were eventually able to aid in the recovery of some Humans from this event, of course, with the arrival of the Exile colony.  This open and almost parental attitude possibly comes from the fact that the Tsubar’ey are aware of the T’zeche having provolved their species hundreds of millions of years ago.  They seem to view it as their duty to aid and advance other forms of life and have no qualms against modifying themselves or other life forms for this end.

It was learned after contact with the League, and earlier by the Exile colonists themselves, that the Tsubar’ey had contact and active diplomatic relations with their neighbors, the Aagüla, and that there was even a robotic Aagüla ambassador in the Tsubar’ey system, as well as a Tsubar’ey embassy of some kind present on the Aagüla gas-giant.  It is even believed by some that the Tsubar’ey provided some aid to the Aagüla in coordinating their colonization of neighboring systems, with their advanced knowledge and vast experience in the local neighborhood although the extent of the partnership between the species remains unknown and neither have commented on it themselves.  Although they enjoy current good relations there is some indication that initial contact between the neighboring species was bad, possibly resulting in open conflict, though due to the closed nature of Aagüla society and the enigmatic nature of the Tsubar’ey, and the truly alien psychology of both species, the true nature of the initial tensions between the two may never be understood.

Given the Tsubar’ey expansionist and curious nature, it should be no surprise that historical records indicate that the Tsubar’ey knew of the ArcBuilders, Sivata, the Lost Civilization, and had varying degrees of contact with them.  It is possibly due to this that some tensions exist between the League and the Tsubar’ey due to the Tsubar’ey government requesting rather elaborate “safety measures” for the ArcWays, and a “screening procedure” for anyone who travels through them.  The Tsubar’ey seemed to believe that the ArcWays were somehow directly responsible for the fall of both the ArcBuilder and the Sivata civilizations, even though the League still considers other more conventional explanations more likely.  The Tsubar’ey fear of the ArcWays is believed to be in part due to their cultures long standing experience with sub-light space travel and the fact that it has become so ingrained into their society they must consider the nearly instantaneous travel between systems allowed by the ArcWays far too fast for their tastes.  Nonetheless, it is this attitude towards the ArcWay network which has served to only inflame the modern popular "ArcWay Conspiracy" theorists.

Part Two -- The Tsubar'ey Civilization Point of View

The First Civilizations
The Tsubar'ey were provolved by the T'zeche 745 million years ago as part of a wide ranging effort to produce life-forms that could operate in environments hostile to the T'zeche themselves but still conducive to complex life.  This was the beginning of the First Tsubar'ey Civilization.  They existed is a sub-polity of the T'zeche and were able to attain a high level of autonomy form their creators before the untimely collapse of T'zeche civilization.  After the T'zeche fell 743 million years ago the Tsubar'ey continued to oversee a significant portion of their former territory in what became known as the Second Civilization.  This civilization lasted until about 738 million years ago when stellar drift, social stagnation, and reliance on T'zeche technology finally caused the Second Civilization to collapse.

Around 730 million years ago several groups of Tsubar'ey that had managed to survive the fall of the Second Civilization began to create their own technological base and expand out once again into the stars.  During this time several independent Tsubar'ey civilizations arose within tens of thousands of years of each other and entered into direct competition.  These different Tsubar'ey, however, soon realized their common origin and eventually came to know of the T'zeche.  After many millennia of negotiation and diplomacy they founded the Third Civilization.  This civilization was strong and vital and was able to pool it's resources to explore and colonize new territory and expand out into the galaxy.  As they expanded they found other worlds touched by the T'zeche (who many of these ancient Tsubar'ey held with a sort of religious reverence) and even more lost colonies of their own kind.  As they expanded out further into the galaxy their civilization began to feel the social and economic strain as communication and unification across the polity became harder to maintain.  During this time the Tsubar'ey had sent out relativistic probes to neighboring galaxies to satisfy their scientific curiosity.  For reasons know only to the Third Civilization, they decided to offset the strain on their civilization by launching a vast intergalactic migration to the Andromeda Galaxy 719 million years ago.

716 million years ago they arrived in the Andromeda Galaxy and founded the Fourth Tsubar'ey Civilization.  The Tsubar'ey flourished in the Andromeda Galaxy and eventually became the dominant civilization in that galaxy.  Then some 300 million years ago they observed a relatively brief episode of major starburst activity in their long abandoned home galaxy as well as an influx of Eiyogsha into Andromeda, and so launched an expedition to investigate the happenings of the Milky Way.  The expedition arrived 294 million years ago and established the Fifth Tsubar'ey Civilization.    The Eiyogsha brought to Andromeda information on their long lost home galaxy and knowledge and technology that were new even to the Fourth Civilization.  The Eiyogsha were welcomed with open arms as kindred of the Tsubar’ey and quickly integrated into the Fourth Civilization.  Many of the Tsubar’ey became curious about their former home and plans were made to launch an expedition to the Milky Way.  The expedition that would found the Fifth Civilization consisted of hundreds of billions of Tsubar’ey and was the greatest undertaking they had ever attempted since the original migration to Andromeda.  The current civilization is the Twentieth Tsubar'ey Civilization, having had periodic migration and colonization of the Milky Way, Andromeda and Triangulum Galaxies during the past 300 million years.

When the expedition arrived they quickly went to work colonizing and creating an interstellar infrastructure.  A beamrider network was created and bound together the local region they had settled in.  The Fifth Civilization enjoyed eons of peace and prosperity and probably would have been content had it not been for events they witnessed in their home galaxy.  They had been receiving regular transmissions from Andromeda since their arrival and two way communication had been established.  Then about 267 million years ago there was a sharp increase in received transmissions that became more and more esoteric until they became unintelligible and then there was a sharp drop off.  Eventually, 265 million years ago, the Tsubar’ey became certain they would no longer receive transmissions from the Andromeda Galaxy and that their progenitor civilization had somehow totally collapsed.  The Fifth Civilization launched probes to the surrounding Galaxies and began preparations to launch seed missions.  The news of the collapse of the parent civilization was taken hard by the Tsubar’ey and eventually it was decided to abandon the Milky Way altogether.  However the Tsubar’ey became split and could not decide on weather or not to return to the Andromeda Galaxy or colonize the Triangulum Galaxy.  Eventually it was decided to construct two migration fleets and colonize both.  The Tsubar’ey felt this would give them the best chance for survival.  Finally 257 million years ago the Tsubar’ey launched the fleets and abandoned the Milky Way Galaxy for a second time.  The Tsubar’ey would,  however,  return from the Triangulum Galaxy 28 million years later during the Eighth Tsubar’ey Civilization.  However, they would again return to it 206 million years ago.

It is for this reason that the Tsubar'ey are most intrigued by Humanity's resilience and ability to bounce back after the fall of the Sivata and the Lost Civilization.  Many members of the Tsubar'ey perceive "kindred spirits" among Humanity and hope they will follow in their footsteps;  rising, falling, and re-emerging like a phoenix, just as they have themselves.

Modern Tsubar'ey Civilizations
There are currently thriving Tsubar'ey civilizations in all three major galaxies of the Local Group, with permanent outposts or automated beacons in most of the associated satellite galaxies as well.  The current major holding of the Tsubar'ey is the still extant Eighteenth Civilization located in the Triangulum Galaxy, which is spread across 8,000 light years and holds tributary territories across the entire galactic habitable zone.  The polity itself utilizes a wormhole network and has constructed numerous stellar-scale feats of celestial engineering.  The Nineteenth and Fifteenth Tsubar'ey Civilizations co-exist into the Andromeda Galaxy, with the Fifteenth Civilization having migrated to the galactic core and achieved a state of social stability there some 55 million years ago.  The Nineteenth and Twentieth Civilizations were both seeded from the current Eighteenth Civilization and not in sequence from each other.

Each of these polities is know as a Tsubar’ey Corpus, stemming from the primary Tsubar’ey social philosophy of the polity being a “greater organism”.  The Orion Corpus in our Galaxy is the youngest of these and the least expansive.  The Triangulum Corpus seems to have a sort of dominant role between the existing Corpuses and may issue long term directives for both of the other galaxies.  The Outer Andromeda Corpus and Inner Andromeda Corpus are on good terms and hold open diplomatic contact with each other.  The Inner Corpus, however, does not take interest in the affairs of the other Tsubar’ey and prefer to keep to themselves.

Not all Tsubar'ey civilizations have followed the typical cyclic rout.  The Sixth Tsubar'ey Civilization was wiped out by the Tenth Tsubar'ey Civilization in a campaign of subjugation and cultural assimilation when they attempted to return to the Andromeda Galaxy, only to itself fall under its own weight.  The Thirteenth and Sixteenth Civilizations of the Triangulum Galaxy destroyed each other is mutual warfare.  The Fourteenth Tsubar'ey Civilization, which had close ties to the Eiyogsha, uploaded the consciousnesses of their entire civilization into femtotech bio-mechanical ships and dispersed throughout intergalactic space.  The rather esoteric and philosophical Seventeenth Tsubar'ey Civilization most recently uploaded and merged their minds into the collective consciousness of their information network, abandoning physical shells altogether, and now act as the caretakers and overlords of the Eighteenth Civilization, and possibly the subsequent civilizations as well.  The Fourth Civilization itself, according to legend, attempted to actually leave our universe altogether with the aid of the Eiyogsha.

Tsubar'ey Physiology and Sociology
Death is an extremely private matter for the Tsubar’ey, and a rare event considering their lifespans and medical technology.  Only the closest pod members of the dead Tsubar’ey may take part in the death ritual, where the dead Tsubar’ey is bid farewell on the “final migration”.  The Tsubar’ey have extended the invitation to partake in the death ritual to members of other species who have become particularly close to the Tsubar’ey or its pod.  At times this invitation is extended for diplomatic purposes to allow for greater understanding between the species in question and the Tsubar’ey.

The Tsubar’ey have an instinctive knack for interstellar travel, and a drive to continue the exploration that has been natural to them for hundreds of millions of years.  The Tsubar’ey spend these long journeys across interstellar space in deep meditation and often experience something similar to what humans describe as a spiritual experience.  The Tsubar’ey are not intimidated by the emptiness or blackness of space.  To the Tsubar’ey, experiencing a trip through the black gives them a feeling of oneness with the universe and a connectedness with it’s inner workings.  Tsubar’ey society believes it is important to experience this and that such meditations are what define them as a species and a culture.  To not experience this urge to go out into space is unheard of among the Tsubar’ey, and to have never made the voyage across interstellar distances is to forever remain apart from the whole of society.

Tsubar’ey bioships are actually remnants of two cultures assimilated into the Corpus of the Seventeenth Civilization.  The first was from a machine society that had been seeded by an Eiyogsha individual in the Triangulum Galaxy know as the Starwalkers.  This nanotech based artificial life form had expanded throughout a significant portion of the Triangulum Galaxy and had integrated the knowledge of their Eiyogsha God into themselves.  Due to this they came to think of themselves as divine beings and saw it as their duty to guide the development of life in their galaxy.  The machine civilization was unified in its goal; however they were not unified in all of their beliefs and became divided over the issue of their own evolution.  These factions were the pro-bioist faction and the anti-bioist faction.  The pro-bioist faction believed that the next logical step in tier own evolution was to include biological components into their own systems.  The anti-bioist faction believed this was an abomination against biological life which they were supposed to guide.  They believed they could no longer remain objective if they included biological components into themselves and the pro-bioist believed that they had moved to far away from the beings they were supposed to guide and oversee.  The war raged on for hundreds of thousands of years and threatened the entire galaxy.  Eventually the Tsubar’ey of the Seventeenth Civilization were drawn into the conflict.  The last remnants of the pro-bioist faction sought refuge in Tsubar’ey territory which the Tsubar’ey, with their own biologically based technology and sympathetic to the pro-bioists, allowed.  This was seen as an act of hostility by the anti-bioists and they proceeded to launch an attack on a Tsubar’ey system in what they hoped would be an effective message of technological power and intimidation.  They could not have been more wrong.  When the Tsubar’ey lost contact with the system and detected the supernova they knew what had happened and proceeded to mobilize their entire civilization.  Trillions of individuals set out across the unfathomable void of space for the territories of the Starwalkers.  With the fortitude and knowledge of hundreds of millions years of civilization and experience, they performed their martial disciplines across the entirety of Starwalker territory, laying waste to everything in their path.  Worlds and entire star systems were annihilated.  With information provided from the pro-bioists the Tsubar’ey scientists were able to create nanotechnological weapons against the Starwalkers.  With their eons of experience they could anticipate the every move and strategy of the Starwalkers before they even began to act.  Finally the Tsubar’ey armada arrived at the Starwalker home system and broadcast a message demanding total surrender, which the remaining anti-bioist Starwalkers complied with.  The pro-bioist Starwalkers joined the Tsubar’ey polity and, with the blessing of the Tsubar’ey, began a path of evolution that would lead to the completely organic Starflyers.  The Starflyer bioships would eventually provolve themselves into a variety of useful forms for the Tsubar’ey Corpus.  They would come to perform functions from transporting volatile cargo to the Tsubar’ey themselves along their interstellar quests to operating as mobile scientific outposts.  The research Starflyers are one of the most diverse clades (if it can really be considered such) with a dizzying array of forms to the point that each individual is almost completely unique, something that may be a part of their Eiyogsha heritage.  Some research Starflyers are equipped with advanced stealth technology and capable of operating without detection by all but the most technologically advanced civilizations.

Another event that occurred was the evolution of the Swarmind on Swarmhome.  The Swarmind was a collective minded association of species operating under a eusocial polity.  They possessed advanced biotechnology which peaked the interest of the Starflyers.  At the behest of the Starflyers the Tsubar’ey initiated contact and opened diplomatic relations.  The Swarmind learned quickly, and in only tens of thousands of years they surpassed the Tsubar’ey and Starflyers in biotechnology.  Eventually, after one and a half million years of self-engineering and advancement, they transferred their collective consciousness into the forms of organic starships, creating the first Tsubar’ey swarmships.  The Swarmships retained their eusocial nature and with their giant motherships that serve as command and production centers.  The Swarmships also retained much of their heritage, with their worker caste becoming the tug-caste, their builder caste becoming the maintenance-caste, their drones becoming the scout-caste, and the warrior caste becoming the escort-caste.  The swarmships themselves are further divided into different clades, the main clades being the exploration, colonization and rescue clades.  These clades are most recognizable by their motherships.  Exploration clad motherships are generally the smallest with many radar eyes and sensory antennas extending from the ship.  Exploration clade fleets typically are comprised of mostly scout-caste Swarmships and have respectable numbers of escort-caste Swarmships associated with them.  Colonization clade motherships have the largest crew and passenger numbers of any clade of mothership, although they are not the largest.  The most common vessels associated with a colonization clade swarmfleet are the tug-caste and the maintenance-caste swarmships, which are usually attending to an accompanying pod of Starflyer phyla interstellar spaceliners.  The rescue clade swarmfleet has the largest motherships and the largest escort-caste compliment of any clade.  They are only sent into action in the event of a major emergency such as hostilities in a contact mission, previously benign indigenous inhabitants of a system becoming hostile or a planetary or solar system scale natural disaster.  Rescue motherships can evacuate or even transport entire Dyson Trees and the escort ships has the firepower to neutralize almost any threat the Tsubar’ey might encounter.  Due to the loyalty and usefulness of the Starflyers and Swarmships the Tsubar’ey would eventually come to abandon bishops of their own construction and ten thousand years after the Swarmind upload Tsubar’ey design bioships were almost completely out of service.

Not all species become so fully integrated into the Corpus and many remained largely autonomous, such as the Solarian Architects, the Bene’Artimian, and the Aagüla.  The Solarian Architects first attracted Tsubar’ey attention with their transmissions over three million years ago.  The Solarian Architects welcomed the Tsubar’ey and enjoyed many benefits of the Corpus but ultimately chose to stay out of most affair pertaining to the larger Corpus, and instead focused their efforts on the creation of a Dyson sphere around their sun and several neighboring suns.  The Bene’Artimian are one of the newest members of the Corpus and though expansionist in nature, they are very slow and deliberate in their movement and focus more on a tight and well maintained communication and trade network between their systems.  The Aagüla were provolved when the Tsubar’ey established a presence in what would come to be know by the Human species as the Local Neighborhood two and a half million years ago.  The Aagüla homeworld was a Titanian Type world experiencing an explosion of biodiversity with the appearance of some of its earliest multicellular forms.  The Tsubar’ey took an interest in these forms and over the next five hundred thousand years would provolve them into various forms, including the Aagüla themselves.  The Aagüla were allowed to advance on their own and over the next two million years advanced until they achieved the capacity for spaceflight, roughly around the time that the ArcBuilders nearly wiped themselves out in nuclear warfare.  The Aagüla, when first encountered,  perceived the Tsubar'ey to be gods despite initial efforts by the Tsubar’ey to dispel the idea.  Eventually the Aagüla figured out the truth, but at the time believed the Tsubar’ey wished to be their masters and eventually felt that they must go to war against the Orion Corpus for their independence.  The Aagüla obtained the aid of the Satlek while the Oswagii sided with the Tsubar’ey.  The war raged for over a thousand years, until approximately four thousand years ago a resolution was reach with the Tsubar'ey.  The Aagüla surrendered and were allowed to begin re-establishing their interstellar presence.  The Aagüla sent out robotic probes and planed to colonize their former holdings; however, by the present date they have only re-claimed les than half of their original range before the war.  The Tsubar'ey then began diplomatic relations with the Satlek, who they had largely ignored up to that point, and trade relations were opened up soon afterwards.

However, the newest and possibly most promising member of the Corpus are the Tartessos’ey, Human colonists that were exiled to AX Microscopii by their briefly-lived oppressive government.  When the colonists arrived they were greeted and welcomed by the Tsubar’ey.  They quickly took to Tsubar’ey society and even used technology given to them by the Corpus to imitate the Tsubar’ey in many ways, including the Tsubar’ey caste system.  They often serve as intermediaries between the Tsubar’ey and the rest of their species, and express great hope that the current benevolent government, the League of Worlds, will eventually become part of the Corpus.

The Godnet
Eventually the 17^th Tsubar’ey Civilization began to devote itself to deeper and fuller understanding of the universe as well as enhancement and improvement of their communications network.  Utilizing Eiyogsha technology from the Starflyers they were able to create an instantaneous communication system allowing them to coordinate efforts across the polity.  These Tsubar’ey also began creating a greater and more direct link between themselves and their extradimensional communications network.  Eventually the entire Corpus was linked together as one mind.  This achievement was quickly followed be a great flowering of science and knowledge of all things physical or spiritual.  Finally these Tsubar’ey, and the other species of their polity as well, were able to completely shed their physical bodies and exist completely in a extradimensional virtual realm.  This achievement was quickly followed by the nanotech disassembly of the bodies and upload of the consciousness of all members of the Corpus.  This event was the creation of the Tsubar’ey Godnet.

The Godnet, for reasons not revealed, chose to after its ascension re-seed Tsubar’ey civilization in its home galaxy.  This was the foundation of the Eighteenth Tsubar’ey Civilization.  Not only were the Tsubar’ey revived, but the Starflyers and Swarmships returned as well.  This civilization flourished and enjoyed peace and enlightenment under the guidance of the Godnet.  The Eighteenth Civilization flowered unlike