| Plasmiods Created by: Some author I cannot remember, adapted by Garry Stahl Appearance: STB-600 Game Number of Members: Several thousands. Nature of Members: Semi-amoeboid invertebrates genetically developed from Human stock. A typical Plasmiod looks like a flesh colored blob weighing about 50 to 60 pounds. The flesh can vary along any possible Human coloration. At rest they are a round dome shaped creature. Plasmiods are not single celled creatures. They have distinctive internal organs. Plasmiods are extremely flexible. A Plasmiod can squeeze through any opening that is at least an inch deep and a total of four square inches in area. Their digestive organs have been integrated with their outer dermal layer. Plasmiods feed by excreting digestive fluids onto the surface they are on and intakings the resulting nutrients. They can eat any organic matter given time, but prefer fungal, mold, and bacterial food sources. Plasmiods communicate by forming a timpanic membrane and speaking. They hear in the same fashion. They can communicate silently by touch, the vibrations not being audible to any being not touched at the time. Plasmiods have six eyes spaced about the circumference of the body. These eyes can be extended for 6 to ten centimeters on muscular pseudopod. Olfactory senses are though the dermal membrane. Plasmiods can extend muscular pseudopods for up to 50 centimeters and form fingers with which to manipulate objects. This requires an effort and a relaxed Plasmiod has no limbs. Reproduction is sexual, Plasmiods come in male and female varieties. Plasmiods are not mammals. Young are born able to feed as do adults. Fetal development is in an internal womb, and gestation is 5 months. Birth weight is 3 to 5 kilograms. Organization: None. They interact with the station as individual member of society. Game Role: Something weird. World Role: It seemed like a good idea at the time. Relative Influence: A hand full of people with no political clout. Public or Secret?: Known secret. No effort is make to publicize their presence, but it isn't hidden either. Publicly Stated Goal: We need a goal? Relative Wealth: Poor. They are living on the Ozain energy ration for the most part. Group advantages: Disease proof. What others call disease they call food. Group disadvantages: Really different looking. They are trying to wrap a mostly primate brain around their real form. Area of Operation: STB-600 Headquarters Location: STB-600 Public Face: Ah, yea, a face would be nice. History of the Organization: Plasmiods are the result of an event in the late 20th century. Religious fundamentalists hijacked and launched a NASA slow ship colony. Two years into the journey they encountered a wormhole and were dumped some 1000 light years from Earth. To their good fortune they encountered a class M world quickly. There was a "discussion" over who would lead the colony in the group and a schism divided the colonists. The breakaway group took one of the landing shuttles and landed at a separate location. The main group put down in what they consider a good spot. Within four years the colony was is serious trouble. Disease was decimating them. After a long prayer session the leaders declared that the wicked heretics had sent these diseases. It was God's will they retaliate in kind! The problem her was the "heretics" had done no such thing. They couldn't, they had crashed with no survivors. The "People of God" were at war with themselves, the planet, and evolution. However God has spoken and the colony threw themselves into fighting a war that didn't exist. Local bugs were weaponized and at first launched on sounding rockets until they ran out of those. Every few years a new disease would hit them and they would hit back. In time the planet surface became a bacterial quagmire and the colony had to move indoors full time. Nothing could survive out there thanks to the heretics. The colony leaders knew they were doomed. The Heretics would win because no one would be left. They had an idea, they would use the genetic science God had given them to make themselves over to survive. Disease had taken it's toll of sanity and they abandoned the entire Human body form to better look like that life that existed out there. After several Generations of work, the Plasmiods were created. This was the situation into which the USS Discovery arrived. The Discovery ended up removing an old timer that everyone called Grandpa, a teacher and 23 children. At that point the Palsmiods were not taken. Several years later a checkup by the USS Abraham Dannon showed the colony in ruins, only the Plasmiods remained. "Big lizards" had removed everyone alive. A brief chase found a Zak battleship in the grip of a dozen diseases. The Zak were dying left and right. The Dannon recovered the remaining colonists, those that didn't fight the Zak invasion, the old, and mentally incompetent. A second Zak ship that had encountered the first was also "saved". Most Zak died ugly, painful deaths. On return the Dannon removed all Plasmiods from what was known as the E coli world figuring the Zak would take it out on the planet itself. They were right. The Zak sterilized the surface. All considered, not a bad thing. The Plasmiods currently live on Oz. They enjoy taking real dirty work in cleaning and maintaining life support and reclamation machinery. Not only do you get a paying job, you get lunch too.
©
Garry Stahl: 1997-2007 unless other Copyrights apply. All rights
reserved, re-print only with permission. Return to the Epiphany Trek Files Your Comments Welcome. |
