Thorans

Thorans are strange, semi-aquatic beings that hail from the ethyl-alcohol ocean planet of Geira (pronounced guy-ra), who have taken it upon themselves to write a complete history of the galaxy. They store the saga of their world and others in rings that orbit their planet like a gyroscope, and are one of the most benign races in the Singularity Theorem.

Original Forum Post
Species Name: The Thoran Homeworld: Geira (pronounced gúy-ra) Appearance:

Basic Biology: Geira is an ocean planet with an ethyl-alcohol sea. The tiny core of the planet is made of deletium, a superdense metal that expands exponentially when heated, even at a low temperature (similar to the black goo in 2:15 of this video). A forerunner race has also used this material to construct a series of 23 hundred-mile-wide artificial rings around the planet, which rotate very quickly, like a gyroscope, making it almost impossible to land a ship on the planet, and keeping the surface of the planet in almost perpetual darkness. The Thoran have built spaceports on the outer ring so that interstellar travelers can visit, but as of yet they haven't colonized any planets other than their own.

The rings surrounding the planet are hollow; the inside is filled with a complex honeycomb of fractal geometry, the arrangement of which can be read, much like a QR code. The cumulative knowledge stored in the deepest 9 rings tells the entire saga of the Thorans' forerunners, the Ghyran. The Thorans have filled the tenth and eleventh rings with their own tales and history. The smallest ring can hold ~80 zettabytes of information (1 zettabyte = 1 billion gigabytes), and the largest, the 22nd ring, can hold over 1200 (The 23rd ring is larger, but it's potential data storage areas have been hollowed out and are currently being used to launch and store ships and supplies). The Thorans have the technology to build more rings if they must.

Thorans themselves are biologically unique in that they can receive zeta rays aurally (imagine if hoomins could hear radio waves without a radio), but are unable to transmit them without equipment. They are omnivorous, and hunt leviathans of the sea that get too close to their underwater (underbooze?) cities along with other, smaller game, and they farm thick bunches of an algae-like plant. Even though they are perpetually inebriated, they seem to be able to think clearly and quickly nonetheless.

Ideology: The Thorans value preservation of history above all else, and the government funds expeditions to explore the galaxy and bring back historical data to inscribe in the rings, along with artifacts and new allies. Thorans' highest priority is knowing what came before, knowing what goes on around them, and, occasionally, knowing what is to come.

Culture: Thorans have cinema, and almost all of the movies produced have been historical in nature except for a few "indie" studios' works of fiction; they justify this by assuming that, since there are an infinite number of universes, their story has to have happened at some point. Thorans use zeta ray-broadcasters that serve as PA systems, both locally and throughout the planet, and literature (also mainly historical in nature) is quite popular as well. Government: Thoran government is an oligarchy led by the most tactical-minded specimens in a city, along with one historian who advises the council against repeating mistakes of the past and records the decisions made in the rings. When a council member dies or steps down, a new member is chosen by the remaining council members to fill the former member's position. Any number of advisors can attend council meetings at one time, usually a dozen or so, and they are elected by the people, but they have no actual power as they cannot vote on issues. Religion: TBD Military: TBD History Prior to FTL Discovery: TBD Other Info: TBD