Background Information Threads (Top Page: Non-Story.)

This is just a quick overview of the big topics for the story background. Each topic will have further information in its own Sub-Threads.

Golglana:

Physical Description: Golglana have fourteen spines radiating out from from a central brain case. Two of these spines are short and controll their legs, mouths, main sensory cluster, vital organs, and digestive system. The other twelve are the basis of their arm/tentacles, which in males terminate in their genitals. Golglana mouths are a ring of fangs similar to shark teeth which lie at the top of the upper short spine, inside the mouth bellow the cutting fangs is a set of grinding mandibles which serve the same purpose as human molars. Around the mouth is the main sensory cluster, which consists of 12 eyes, 12 olfactory pits, and the 12 "heat detectors" which allow the Golglana to 'see' heat. Below each pair of olfactory pits is a small mouth like pocket containing a forked tongue like arrangement similar to a Terran snake, which lets them collect particles from the air and deliver them to their "nose" for more thorough inspection.
The Golglana "taste" with their sphincter 'lips' outside thier mouth, allowing them to determine if food is acceptable to eat before it enters their mouth proper, a good thing because their mouth is most often pointed straight up when eating and drinking.

Golglana have six legs, which are jointed similar to those of an insect, but fleshy and with an endo-skeleton like humans. Their feet end in three toed hooves, made of keratin like human fingernails.

Golglana females have shorter 'arms' than the males, being only about three feet long. Males arms by contrast can be up to 12 feet in length when they reach maximum extension shortly before the male succumbs to old age at roughly 58 Terran Standard years. (Research into longevity treatments for Golglana males shows incredible promise but is still in its infancy.) Golglana males are physiologically adult at 15.27 Terran Standard years of age but their society does not consider them ready for the risk of matting until they are at least 18.31 Terran Standard years old. (Slightly more than 15 of their home world's years.) Both genders are covered with a thin-but-tight-spaced layer of downy hairs on the majority of their body, with the notable exception of their "arms" which have ridges and whorls along their entire length similar to those on human fingers.

Golglana are mammalian and viviparous, carrying pregnancy, giving live birth, and nursing their young, though their milk contains a mix of elements and chemicals that will sicken humans after ingesting less than half a litter. The same is true in reverse of Terran Mammals, humans included. Both can avert this reaction through inoculation with genetically engineered intestinal bacteria to digest the foreign molecular structures and bind the **** heavy metals, but must then ingest at least 0.1 Litters of the foreign milk type daily to keep the bacteria healthy and active.

Moving on.

Stardrive:

The "Stardrive" of this universe works through a warp-space principle; there is a parallel dimension underpinning reality as we know it where the speed of light is less a limit and more of a guideline. the trick with this drive is that you have to be in a certain 'sweet spot' of the gravity well of a large astronomical object to make the jump to/from the "Trans-Spacial" layer of the universe. The sol system has two such jump-points, one at approximately the orbit of mercury, and the other near to the outer layer of the Jovian atmosphere. Each of these jump points leads to more than one different "Starcurrents", in Jupeter's case there are three and sol provides five. Both of them have one current that leads between the two, called the "Solar-Jovian Lines" and they Are among the most stable and frequently traveled paths in the known universe. the other six lines in the sol system go to different stars. It is believed that it could be possible to reach any star in the galaxy via the right combination of star-currents, but it would, in some cases, be a very long journey.

Star-currents are similar to those in the ocean, or perhaps the most stable of major air-currents, such as the jet-stream, but neither of them quite captures their essence. Specifically, star travel in this universe is more like sailing ship that moves in 3d than anything we've described so-far. These currents are caught with immense sails of special materials that unfurl from the ship after entering The Trans-Spacial Layer, and then controlling those sails to follow that current to a point where you can resurface into normal space. This is often tricky and countless ships have been lost over the years by missing their exits from the Trans-Spacial Layer. Some of those ships later re-emerged, either elsewhere in the galaxy or fairly close-by at say, a different star or gas-giant in the same solar system. However, even today, the number of 'lost colonies' of humans that continue to be found is staggering, and derelict 'ghost ships' with tattered and torn sails continue to be spotted deep in the dull and becalmed areas outside the known and charted currents.

It is also worth mentioning that such ships cannot be "rescued" because the strange non-physical gaseous-liquid-vacuum substance which makes up the Transit-Layer is, flammable, in a sense. injecting too much stray physical matter in any non-solid state, or charged energy of any kind beyond a low threshold within that layer can ignite it for a brief period until the matter or energy is consumed. These violent reactions have been the doom of thousands upon thousands of ships, at least, though the true damage will likely never be known. This means that the overwhelming majority of both types of warfare and rescue operations are impossible in Transit Space, or at least too risky to be practical. There have been occasional rescues that have succeeded by using canisters ejected behind the ship which release a tiny amount of gas into the Trans-Spacial Medium to produce brief gusts of 'wind' to push the ship along, but for every successful rescue done this way, two or three end in disaster. An old saws common among star-sailors says the following: "You save yourselves or you remain unsaved."