# Phidians ## Overview The Phidians are a species whose origins are from the very world named after themselves- [[Phidius]]. The name is what humans refer to them due to the sculpture-like formation they have. The Phidians are deeply toxic to Terran life, despite being able to breathe similar air to us to the point where you could share a planet with them. If it wasn't for how they tend to toxics regions of planets in their soupy chemicals and bleach-like sludge The intelligence of Phidians is highly debated, it varies a lot as their intelligence is very emergent from being in a group. A Sapient Phidian has no real sense of self, instead they are in a perpetual state of atonal humming as they mosey about their world in ritual patterns. Structures are made over time by them, many of which promote a range of alien concepts such as the Cindering, an ideology based around mutilation and hope from mutilation. The state of hopeful harm, so to speak- mutilation is a highly sexual act for them, peeling and cracking being of deeply liberating of the core self-locked away by the confirms of natural laws- where rep fiction is a must, death must be feared and one must consume. Active defiance of nature is a massive cultural drive of theirs, with a many zealotic Phidians fasting, risking their lives regularly and having sex for the sake of sex- not in the name of having children. To live free is what they seek, by a definition quite distinctive from what we know of. The Phidians are a highly non-material entity, who tend to only have a minority breeding (these breeders constitute a slave class which criminals are banished to- to the punishment of having to become pregnant!) ## Biology The Phidians are a densely packed species, with a rectangular shell which it calls home. It has 2 sets of eye stalls protruding from the top of its head and a set of long grabbing mandible arms which are retractable to a degree (can be stuffed into the shell). Phidians are beings who aren't terribly big, usually just being a couple feet in height. The Phidians have only one biological sex and use a gamete system which only has one gamete. The Phidian shells are calcium based (like on earth) and they are very slow, but resilient creatures. They are developed from grazers and usually share scents through mucus trails and the like. Their nature is also complicated by their tentacled arms, which used to be legs from when they were aquatic creatures who evolved to be land creatures. Their mouth (which is a one way gut) is where it always should be but their eyes gut pushed up and the shell got stronger and stronger, to the point where they die if you remove it. This hasn't stopped Phidians from mutilating their shells, why it seems to encourage them to. ## Psychology Phidians are very much herd beings and this herd mentality, while allowing for the large group collaborative research that allowed them to develop space travel and allows for incredibly regimentation and stability any military leader could only hallucinate on LSD about has caused their civilization to be obsessed with group harmony and an extreme sense of conformity, no matter how criminal the behavior. Phidians despite that in private show much more individual, but very disoriented and disjointed thinking- and are willing to publicly act like such with the proper substances. Phidian Psychology is very much obsessed with the large, flexible herd sizes which they can form without much an issue. Unlike the clan structure, these groups are flexible and you become part of one by mere proximity with behavioral changes instilled by the pheromone discharges their cohorts regularly leave. #Phidian #sapient #carbonic