Notes on the History of the Pelagian Peoples, Part 1
The Pelagian peoples are a rich and vibrant community of peoples that originate from the planet Pelagia, which lies in a red dwarf system located a few hundred parsecs northwest of the outer reaches of the Kingdom. Pelagia is covered in a massive contiguous aquatic zone that covers about 88% of the surface of the planet. However, while more of the surface of Pelagia is covered by water than on Earth, the mean depth of Pelagia’s oceans is far more shallow than that of Earth. While the mean depth of Earth’s oceans runs at about 3,700 meters, Pelagia’s oceans average a paltry 2,100 meters in depth. This means that a greater amount of Pelagia’s oceans run at depths more suited to producing life. It is small wonder that the Pelagians themselves never left the confines of aquatic life, and evolved entirely as an aquatic species.
Basic anatomy
Pelagians have no skeletal structure, as we would know it. They are often called squids in common parlance, but they are actually more akin to a jellyfish in basic structure (albeit with a thicker outer “skin”, rather than a gelatinous membrane). On Earth, most jellyfish have a minimal muscular structure, and consequently are only capable of producing small amounts of kinetic energy, really only enough to help the jellyfish move itself from point A to point B at a relatively slow pace. Pelagians, while not containing a series of muscles as we might know them on Earth, do have a system of cellular structures that are capable of imposing great feats of strength to not only transport their own bodies, but also impose their will upon objects around them. These kinetic cellular structures are primarily located around an array of six highly flexible limbs (erroneously called “tentacles” by many) and lining a bell-like organ that provides the pelagians with their primary means of self-propulsion.
In addition, an Earth jellyfish carries a fairly basic nervous system that generally does not coalesce around a central nervous system or brain. Pelagians likewise do not have a central “brain” per se, but their nervous system is highly complex in comparison and capable of cognitive discourse at least as complex as that of the human brain, albeit not as centralized as a brain. Some observers have likened their cognitive system as less like a hand controlling a puppet (as one might describe the brain) and more like a highly synchronized team working together to operate the overall body. As early human military observers noted not long after first contact with the pelagians, this means that there is no “one-shot kill” spot on the pelagian body, as cognitive and neurological command ability is spread evenly throughout the body. However, later observers noted that wounding a pelagian almost anywhere on its body not only wounds that particular part of the body, but also reduces its cognitive abilities at the same time.
Notes on Early Pelagian History
As one might expect, Pelagian history is very different from Human history, and this becomes abundantly clear quite early in Pelagian history. One easy illustration of this comes from examining early inventions by each culture. In Human history, the earliest and most fundamental inventions were arguably the control of fire, the wheel, the control of electricity, the printing press, and the steam engine (among others and in no particular order). Of these five inventions, only the control of electricity even took place in early Pelagian history. Pelagians, living their entire lives under water, had no concept or understanding of fire until they attempted to leave their oceans and explore dry land. Even then, they did not think of fire as a potential source of power or danger until much later in their history. Steam was known to Pelagians at an early stage, but was seen more as a source of lift than a way of turning a turbine to create electricity. In fact, the Pelagians first learned to harness electricity more through electro-chemical reactions than from electromagnetic induction. Some suggest that this experience is a primary reason for Pelagian battery technology being so much more advanced than that of any other race.
Migration and early challenges
As in most other species, early Pelagian expansion was hindered primarily by climate, and specifically temperature. Being an aquatic species, however, Pelagians found that they could overcome these temperature and climate challenges by simply reaching different depths of the oceans. For example, if a particular Pelagian group wished to migrate farther south, but found the temperatures too hot nearer the equator, they could simultaneously search for settlement grounds at greater depth, which would be cooler in temperature. However, greater depth also meant greater pressure, and Pelagian anatomy could handle only so much pressure. As a result, early Pelagian inventions concentrated far more on mitigating the effect of water pressure than Humans ever cared to explore. Some say that this has led to a different perspective on gravitational force than the humans have. Most lay-humans visualize gravity as a primarily vertical force (e.g., the apple falls vertically from the tree). Pelagians, however, tend to see gravity more as an external effect that applies force inward from all angles.
Nonetheless, this ability to change depth to better suit their living conditions lead to a different perspective on city building as well. To this day, Pelagian cities are organized far more vertically than those of their gas-breathing equivalents. This was also due in no small part to the lessened gravitational challenges the pelagians faced under water. Early pelagians had little difficulty transporting themselves or heavy materials vertically, foregoing the need for massive cranes or other means of lift during construction or even within the design of the buildings. Pelagian architects tended to treat vertical passageways no differently than horizontal passageways in their building designs, assuming that all denizens would be able to travel equally well vertically as horizontally. This means that pelagian buildings are not organized floor by floor, as in human constructions, but actually in more pod-like inner structures organized spherically. Think of the way fish eggs are held together and one can begin to visualize standard pelagian architecture.
This theme of a lessened gravitational challenge for early pelagians is an advantage[1] that would come to haunt later pelagian scientists when it came time to take on the challenge of leaving the oceans and, eventually, leaving the atmosphere. However, once the pelagians overcame the monumental task of reaching beyond their own atmosphere, they found their early history and development made them far more suited to life among the stars than other species. More on that and other notes in Part 2.
[1] While having a lower gravitational pull with which to contend provided early pelagians with many advantages over their land-based counterparts, there were certain aspects of this environment that provided greater challenges as well. For example, early humans could use the power of heavy objects to assist them with things like hammering or shaping objects, early pelagians enjoyed no such assistance.