Xenochimera

IC Lore

An extraterrestrial colony organism, xenochimera are unusual in that they have no real defining physiology of their own - effectively, xenochimera mimic other beings, or parts of other beings, by consuming them and mutating their own cellular structure to imitate whatever evolutionary advantages they may find.

On the cellular level, these creatures are composed of a hive of microscopic organisms - these form the basis of the majority of their bodily systems. When they feed on another being, effectively these organisms will consume the prey like a flesh-eating bacteria, rather than the more typical acidic digestion used by many other species (note: that doesn't mean that a particular example of the species hasn't found that a traditional stomach is a desirable evolutionary trait to copy) and, once having consumed enough, the cells will split, possibly mutating to mimic that which was eaten, and assimilate themselves into the rest of the hive. Individual chimera cells are capable of rudimentary communication with their neighbours, forming a sort of primitive neural network, but are not capable of anything resembling intelligence beyond primitive survival instinct. Effectively, the default state of a xenochimera is an order of intelligence on a par with an ant colony - not an individual ant but the colony itself, driven by little more than to survive at all costs.

That is, unless they manage to assimilate and mimic something with a complex nervous system. At this point, provided that the hive successfully copies it, they can find themselves awakening to a greater degree of understanding than they have ever managed before - however, they are still the colony when all is said and done, and pressing survival needs will override whatever refined thoughts they may hold in their heads, leaving them generally prone to panic and fight-or-flight responses in extremely stressful situations, when injured or damaged, or driven to feed when hungry. The most common term used to describe a xenochimera that has reverted to primitive instinct in this manner is "feral".

Xenochimera do not reproduce sexually. Genetic diversity is attained through their diet, making the evolutionary advantages of mating a somewhat moot point. Typically, their digestive, immune, and reproductive systems are all one and the same - individual cells within the colony locate foreign cellular material, consume it, and then split into more chimera cells. The process by which new colonies are formed is not wholly understood, though exposing a laboratory mouse to a suitably large dose of chimera cells has resulted in the mouse being consumed and the resulting cellular mass forming into a proto-mouse copy. Either way, typically reproductive organs are absent from xenochimera colonies as they serve no useful purpose to them.

In most cases medical treatment is fairly standard as the colonies are mimicking the basic physiology of other species - if they are leaking fluids, then bandage them as normal. If they are poisoned, administer the usual pharmacy treatments. If they have suffered organ damage, provide surgical treatment. However, it should be noted that their bizarre genetic structure is completely incomprehensible to all available cloning technology. They are rather hardy creatures, though, and even if a colony is damaged to the extent that it appears "dead", as long as there is still some viable material present they can likely be revived, in a fashion, by injecting the body with a concentrated nutrient solution to prompt whatever remaining living cells are present to come out of hibernation and go about regrowing themselves. The process is not pretty, as the colony will effectively cannibalise any unviable biomass and grow a new body from scratch. This process can take anything from minutes to weeks, depending on the extent of the damage, and is extremely draining on the colony's resources - they will most likely be in a feral state when they emerge, and will almost certainly be suffering from neural degradation as a result of the trauma. Regrowing and repairing nervous tissue is extremely troublesome for them, and a colony that has suffered neural damage will often require an extensive period of recuperation and hibernation to come even close to fixing it themselves. Or they might just eat someone's head and skip that part.

Typically, a colony will do whatever it can to avoid the need for such drastic measures - extremely stressful situations will prompt them to adapt on the fly in an attempt to minimise damage in whatever way they can - as one enterprising tajara scientist found out, even to the point of mimicking a host's own cells and hiding within their body. (the scientist suffered no ill-effects, though was quoted as saying "She will find otherr mice outside the lab to eat next time.")

Xenochimeras can be extremely voracious, especially when in a feral state due to hunger. While in this state, they will be unable to use most objects; primarily guns and other "advanced" items. A feral xenochimera is not always identifiable at first glance (even in their more lucid moments, they have a tendency to display instinctive behaviour, sometimes even the instincts of whatever creatures they are composed of), but can usually be spotted upon closer examination. The only way to get a feral xenochimera out of this feral state is to remove whatever source of stress is driving them into a feral state in the first place - if they are hungry, feed them - and be aware that the majority are obligate carnivores, and the closer the meat is to being alive, the better. If they are panicking, remove whatever is scaring them. If they are injured, let them heal. An entire crew descending on them to rubberneck will often elicit the same response that one would get from any cornered and frightened animal.

If there are offshoots of the species as a whole, nobody has yet managed to identify them. Due to the wide range of diversity within the species, even if a specimen were to be obtained, it would be near-impossible to conclusively show that they were a different sub-species and not just another colony. For instance, it has been suggested that another species, dubbed "endochimera" is a genetic offshoot, while others believe they evolved independently and are another species entirely despite the superficial similarities.

Oh, and there's still no such thing as changelings.

Known distribution of xenochimera, and suspected origin area.

Origins

Home planet: Not known, presumed no longer extant

Home system: Not known, suspected to originate from Norma Arm, somewhere between Virgo-Erigone and the galactic core.

The origins of xenochimera are presently unknown - xenochimera biomass has been found frozen in space, buried in asteroids, and in rare cases mistaken for fossils in xenoarchaeological digs, with at several examples of such a creature making planetfall in a meteorite - although it could be better described as a "seed" than a "creature" at that point. The majority has been found in asteroids that have been captured by stellar and planetary gravity wells - theoretically, more may be found in interstellar space, but due to the use of bluespace drives to cover such distances, any FTL-capable craft will simply bypass them.

Known planets that have experienced landfall tend to be found in the Scutum-Centaurus Arm, and the clustering suggests an impact in the Virgo-Erigone system is possible. Asteroids, but no (presently known) planetary impacts have been traced further out towards the edges of the galaxy, implying a point of origin further towards the core. So far, no impacts or asteroids have been reported around Sol or the Orion Spur, where human traffic is heaviest. Limited human exploration has lead to no data being available on the Norma Arm or much further past Virgo-Erigone.

Present theories suggest a catastrophic impact of some kind that shattered their planet of origin and scattered the biosphere and topsoil into deep space - denser areas of the galaxy such as the core and major arms are considered likely to experience such impacts with greater frequency than those on the outer arms. As for the vast distances involved between the furthest discovered examples, it's projected that such an impact occurred relatively recently in astronomical terms - possibly younger than the Chicxulub impact - but certainly before present space-faring civilisations were around.

Common IC knowlege

Xenochimera are something of an unusual race, even by the standards of the various things that show up on station. Actually, that's probably an understatement. Xenochimera are weird. Most of the information on this page is not going to be known IC to characters who haven't had any interaction with xenochimera before.

If your character is experienced in xenobiology, it's likely that they've read about them in journals. Likewise, medical staff may have read about some of the bizarre creatures they may have to treat, and security have briefing materials available about working with potentially feral crewmembers.

Xenobiologists

If your character is a xenobiologist, most of the IC information on this page can be researched or looked up in the various scientific journals that deal with weird alien life, and getting one to voluntarily sit still for experimentation is something that most biologists with a passion for their work would jump at. It should be noted that Nanotrasen (and indeed, most larger organisations in civilised space that have to care about PR) do not condone non-consensual biological or medical testing on sentient life. Officially.

Medical Staff

Medical staff will have information available to them on any unusual species that might be brought into the sick bay. Fortunately, xenochimera being what they are, medical staff will often have an easier time keeping them alive than they do with less hardy lifeforms.

Treating xenochimera for injuries is fairly straightforward. Surgery is the same, most chemicals react the same way. The main difference is that they cannot be given genetic modifications, nor can they be cloned. They can shrug off most infections and non-lethal injuries given time, but it will make them rather hungry - the greatest complication is that injured xenochimera have a tendency to regress into a feral state. Fortunately, treating them for injuries may be as simple as injecting a slab of synthmeat with tricordrazine and tossing it at them. Failing that, just sedate them. Either with the syringe gun or by drugging some meat.

The most important attribute that xenochimera exhibit is their hibernation cycle - effectively putting their own bodies into stasis and growing a new body from scratch, after which they will hatch out of their old skin as good as new. As long as they still have a pulse, they should be able to do this unaided, though it's rather taxing, considerably slower than modern resleeving, and will tend to leave them hungry afterwards.

Even apparently deceased xenochimera may be able to recover, though they will require outside assistance - simply inject the corpse with liquid nutriment. Grind up some synthmeat or something, load it into a syringe, inject it, and let 'em sort themselves out. It takes 15 units of protein, or 30 units of non-protein nutriment. You can feed them orally, but it takes double the quantities.

If medical staff encounter a xenochimera that is undergoing regeneration, intervention is most likely unnecessary - just move them somewhere safe. Preferably with moppable floors.

Resleeving and off-site cloning

Their unusual biology is beyond the abilities of a body-printer, but a mind-scan is perfectly capable of recording them (even if their bodies do tend to spit out the implants as a foreign body). Fortunately, being as difficult as they are to actually kill off completely, as long as there's enough left of the body to scrape into a jar - including being completely blown to pieces or forced through an industrial shredder - what's left of them can be used to seed the growth of a new body suitable for re-implanting a mind-scan. This is, however, a lengthy process - if they get gibbed, they're not coming back in the same shift, or possibly even in the same week depending on how badly central screw it up. As an absolute last resort, the same off-site mind-scan facilities are available to xenochimera as to other crew in the event of total bodily destruction, even if CentCom forgot to keep a tissue sample on ice and they have to spend a few days as a synth rooting around in their apartment for an old skin or whatever. If there's still a corpse but they're not revived on-site, CentCom's current procedure is to toss the body into a bathtub of meat and let it sort itself out.

Many xenochimera experience discomfort when sleeved into a non-xenochimera body, with the feeling that something of them is "missing" - even if they can achieve a certain clarity of thought that isn't possible with their more feral instincts constantly gnawing at them, it feels wrong somehow - psychiatrists have noted similarities to extreme cases of body dysmorphia.

Security

Security staff that have been assigned to a station with xenochimera on the crew will have basic briefing materials available to them on how to handle the crewmember in question's feral tendencies.

The most common contributing factors for a feral episode are hunger, pain, injury, and (rarely) overstimulation. One can be a contributing factor to the others - a starving chimera is less likely to retain its composure while hurt, for example. It should be noted that tasers and other stun weapons hurt a lot. The energy net mode of a "Hunter" capture gun, not so much. A syringe (or slab of meat) full of soporific won't hurt at all. That's not to say a taser won't drop them (it will), but you won't get much sense out of them until they've calmed down.

Otherwise, the best way to neutralise any threat posed by a feral chimera is to remove whatever is agitating them in the first place. If they're injured then they're more likely to run off and hide somewhere, in which case they're only a threat if people provoke them. If they're hungry, leave some food around the place or find a volunteer. If someone's fed them a quadruple-espresso, you may be in for an interesting time until they stop vibrating.

Roleplaying a xenochimera

The short way of putting this is that typically, xenochimera are odd. Even the more lucid specimens have very strong instincts, even when they're not snapping and eating anything that moves. Not really voices in the back of their head, but definitely... urges. It takes willpower to keep these urges in check and pretend to be anything resembling a civilised member of society.

The first thing to bear in mind is that they are what they eat. Literally. They eat stuff, then the bits of that stuff they like is replicated, forming a hybrid of their prey. And they are not a sapient species by default. In order to attain that lofty status, they had to get a complex nervous system from somewhere - this fact alone is likely to mean that a xenochimera is likely to have been shunned in most parts of the galaxy simply for existing, as the simple fact that they're walking on two legs and talking means at least one sentient creature has been part of their diet at some point in the past.

That's not to say that a xenochimera can't be civilised, depending on their upbringing. One raised by the Skrell or Diona may well have been given some instruction in keeping their urges at bay, through meditation or other such mental discipline. It's entirely feasable for a chimera to, say, take full responsibility for the fact that their sentience was only possible with the consumption of another being, and to take steps to make amends for this. It's equally likely that they just won't care and figure it was just another meal, especially if they're hanging around the parts of the galaxy where people eating each other is seen as a pretty normal thing to be doing.

They're not a great species to play if you're wanting to get into ERP. The concept is somewhat alien to them (and in some cases, deemed rather silly) - considering that they literally reproduce by killing something and spewing a bunch of flesh-eating microbes onto it, such niceties as "sex" are somewhat beyond them. They may have picked up and replicated some instincts from whatever creatures they're primarily composed of, however, or may have unwittingly incorporated a pleasure response to something or other into their brains, so it's not completely beyond them, it just doesn't serve much of a reproductive purpose.

Going Feral

Xenochimera go feral when subjected to stress factors - notably: pain, jitteriness, and hunger. You'll get a big red warning when this happens, along with occasional nudge messages to remind you of your state. You'll twitch, and you'll hallucinate - this isn't so much a "bugs coming out of the walls" crazy, it's more of a "the station is a strange, alien place that your instincts can't fully comprehend" situation. Ideally, you'll want to retreat and hide somewhere, preferably somewhere dark. If the light level is low enough, the hallucinations will stop, but you won't start to come out of your feral state until all stress factors have been resolved. As a rule, it takes less pain/hunger to keep a xenochimera feral than it does to make them feral.

In order to keep from interfering with scenes, these hallucinations will cease when you have someone on your screen, but you'll still get periodic nag messages.

The main piece of advice from a roleplaying perspective is that when you're feral, you are an animal. Not some wildly aggressive, pain-ignoring killing machine that laughs at danger, just an animal. Usually a rather scared, possibly wounded, possibly hungry animal in a strange, unnatural place. You're going to want to hide. You're going to want to eat. You're going to be scared by loud noises and large crowds. Pain will definitely motivate you. Displays of aggression will provoke a fight-or-flight response, or displays of your own. Technology will seem strange and complicated and you're not likely to be doing anything fancy like operating computers or hacking doors, even guns will be more of a "see this in someone's hand and you'll sorta be aware that you're about to have a really bad time" thing than actually knowing what it is or how to use one.

tl;dr - you're a wild animal. Act like one.

Life Cycle and reproduction

A younger chimera will typically grow from whatever biomass is available. They can start off from cast-offs of another chimera, infections of chimera cells in a living host, or occasionally, still-viable chimera cells will make contact with life-bearing planets (or vessels) via meteorite/asteroid impact. The latter appears to be the manner in which xenochimera reached this sector of the galaxy - to date, nobody has been able to determine a point of origin, or even estimate how long they've been drifting through interstellar space.

Once grown into a mobile life form, the chimera will be driven by the singular instinct to survive and evolve, which will entail consuming whatever it can get its various limbs on. Whether they successfully capture and mimic a sentient neural structure or not, this early stage typically involves a flurry of rapid change and mutation as each new thing is incorporated into it - rather like the early fossil records on Earth, where evolution seemed to throw all sorts of crazy ideas out there to see what would work. Even sentient chimera are prone to experimenting with their bodies at this young stage, as they try out different traits and tweaks just to see what they like, though they typically end up stabilising once they've found a formula that works for them.

The process of regrowing and mutating their bodies comes naturally to them, and will usually take place while the chimera is resting. Their body will simply cannibalise any parts that are no longer required, and grow new ones in its place. For drastic changes, or when severely damaged, they may hibernate while their entire body reverts into a base cellular state (save the outer skin) and regrows into the new form - rather like an earth caterpillar.

While xenochimera are technically androgynous, those that have been raised by other cultures (typically, most sentient examples) may end up adopting a gender identity just for the sake of convenience and/or fitting in. While it serves no real biological purpose to them, there are examples of chimera mimicking sexual dimorphism, such as a "female" growing breasts purely for the sake of signalling their identity to their host species. Others simply do not bother, or consider themselves so different that gender is irrelevant: a typical human cannot always tell a tomcat from a queen at a distance, after all.

Once a chimera colony is sufficiently mature, it may seek to split or reproduce. This is usually a simple matter of casting off some of its own biomass and letting it grow independently of its own body. Usually some feedstock is required. As with a lot of chimera biology, the process is rather unpleasant to most civilised species and will typically entail hunting and killing another creature then seeding the fresh cadaver with chimera cells (read: vomiting on it). Given time, the chimera cells will consume the donor mass and proceed to mutate into a new creature.

If a chimera approaches someone in a seductive manner and propositions them with a chance of reproductive acts, therefore, it is recommended that they get a mind/body scan in medbay before accepting. Worth it? Well, we're not going to judge.