The Pelagians are a race of sentient aquatic animals coming from the planet Pelagia. Pelagians typically boast eight invertebrate limbs, causing some on Earth to equate them with squids or octopuses. However, apart from the limbs which help visually define Pelagians, they actually carry an extensive skeletal structure within their torso and skull regions. Respective to human anatomy, Pelagians exhibit a much greater proportion of their torsos and skulls. Having said that, when a Pelagian is “standing” on solid ground next to a human, it appears to be much shorter as it tends not to stand as tall on its limbs in standard gravity as a human does.
What distinguishes Pelagians from other space fairing creatures the most, however, has not been their physical differences so much as the affect they have had on space warfare and other out-of-atmosphere military engagements.
By way of background, it is important to note that the pelagians required a relatively long time to develop space flight as compared to the other species of space. This is due in no small part to their aquatic nature, which requires their spacecrafts to be filled with the much heavier water, as opposed to the various gaseous atmospheres required in other ships. This, combined with the sub-aquatic natures of the launch pads used by early pelagian spacecraft, vastly complicated the necessary systems to achieve early space flight. As a direct result, pelagian societies were necessarily further developed at the moment they achieved space flight as compared to the other species of space at the same moment.
The degree to which this fact influenced Pelagian strategic advancement, however, remains a subject of debate. Some scholars argue that the extra time required to develop space flight allowed pelagian military strategists more time to develop their craft and develop strategies not seen on other planets or in other military encounters.
Other scholars, however, point to a more evolutionary influence on pelagian military strategy. These scholars argue that given the purely aquatic evolution of the pelagian species, they developed a more natural understanding of military strategy in a three dimensional environment. This lead to a military strategy more initially suited to out-0f-atmosphere engagements.
Regardless of the cause, it is generally agreed that early Pelagian military strategies (as exhibited in their first engagements with Sapien Colonial forces and later with expeditionary forces under the command of the Unified Human Military Command) were surprisingly advanced for such an ostensibly less technologically advanced military force.
We say ostensibly inferior technology because, despite clear inferiority to human spacecraft on a number of rather basic levels (propulsion systems, sensors, firepower, etc.) Pelagian military spacecraft enjoyed a number of technological advantages over their human counterparts that directly led to a number of their early victories (and indeed advantages that continue to hold true today).
Foremost among these advantages is the very basic fact that pelagian spacecraft are filled with water. This means that Pelagian craft are, by necessity, many times denser than other spacecraft. The weapons employed by the human forces in the early engagements with Pelagian forces were designed to pierce the hulls of far less dense objects at high velocity. As a result, the projectiles from these weapons had a tendency to ricochet off the Pelagian ships or, in the case of more direct hits, would be more quickly absorbed and, ultimately, do far less damage than would otherwise be expected. It was not until more advanced analyses of the battles were undertaken and better intelligence gathered that human military forces began using the “old fashioned” yet more effective concussive weaponry against Pelagian forces.
Nonetheless, Pelagian military forces continue to enjoy impressive advancements on a number of fronts, and Pelagian military strategists continue to surprise, confound and challenge their adversaries to this day. As such, Pelagian military forces have come to be some of the most feared and respected military forces in the known universe.