List of Star Control races

This is a list of fictional alien species that appeared in various games of the Star Control franchise.

History and reception

The original Star Control game featured a melee combat mode where players could engage in combat using a variety of alien ships. However, Star Control II became critically acclaimed for its innovative storyline where the player must recruit the help of several memorable alien races. All Games praised the storyline based on the fact that "races span a range of emotions", resulting in an overall "rare and praiseworthy design achievement".[1] GameSpot considers Star Control II one of the greatest games of all time, in part because "the 18 different races in Star Control II were all distinctively different, and none of them fit the generic science-fiction stereotypes that have always been so common in games."[2] This also earned the game a top 10 ranking for the best game worlds of all time among GameSpot readers, claiming that "the extraterrestrial races you meet ... are what made the gameworld one of your favorites of all time."[3] These exterrestrial races were also instrumental in earning the game a rank as one of the top 10 game endings of all time. "The ending sequence was not only highly amusing, it also provided a great deal of closure, since it tied up all of the loose ends for each race.[4]

Star Control 3 took the template of interesting races that the series had become known for and expanded upon it. Computer and Video Games felt the game lacked the appeal of its predecessor, but still offered praise for its "brilliant characters".[5] According to GameSpot, "the creepy critters and droids who inhabit Star Control 3 are its strongest point ..., all of them animatronically controlled renderings, and each with its own distinct personality.[6] GameRevolution praised the game for its character design, noting that "the new species vary in their traits and appearances so as to make the players [sic] interaction with each species an interesting experience of it's [sic] own."[7]

Introduced in Star Control

Androsynth

The Androsynth are super-intelligent Homo sapiens clones. Genetically engineered for intellectual superiority, they were denied equal rights and forced into a life of work. As a result they grew to harbour deep hatred for their imprisoners. They went renegade, escaping Earth in one large movement, having secretly invented hyperspace travel before the Earthlings. The race found a new home in the Vulpecula constellation and allied with the Ur-Quan in their Hierarchy of Battle Thralls, hoping to defeat some of their old oppressors.

In the events of Star Control II the human Captain entered the Androsynth home system intent on contacting them, only to find the apparent remains of the Androsynth civilization on the second planet. Not a single Androsynth, dead or alive, was found among the scraps of their buildings and technology. Evidence was found of a recent breakthrough by the Androsynth in the field of interdimensional physics, leading to some cataclysmic event, but the exact nature of the calamity remained a mystery.

The Arilou suggest the Orz did something terrible to them after the Androsynth interdimensional discovery attracted their attention. The Arilou avoid discussing it further, warning that the mere knowledge of it could put all of humanity in danger of suffering the same fate.

Arilou

The Arilou (short for Arilou Lalee'lay) are aligned with the Alliance of Free Stars.[5] They resemble the little green men of popular science fiction, and their ships also resemble stereotypical flying saucers. The Arilou live outside the galaxy, out of truespace and hyperspace. This little "nook" is called QuasiSpace, and it contains their homeworld Falayalaralfali. Well versed in information gathering and intergalactic or interdimensional travel, they know many races and beings that Earthlings do not. The Arilou would rather keep it that way—they claim that things exist, the mere knowledge of which is dangerous.

The Arilou have had much interaction with Humans throughout mankind's evolution, and hint at a "vested interest" in the Human race. They visit Earth often to "check up" on Humans, although their true motive remains unrevealed. It's likely no coincidence that the Arilou appeared and joined the Alliance of Free Stars the day after the humans entered the war, and abruptly left again the day Earth was slave shielded. They have peaceful relations with the Umgah race, even after the tricksters joined the Ur-Quan Hierarchy of Battle Thralls. Orz are another dimension-traveling race; however, the Arilou say that is where their similarity ends.

Due to their age and partially due to their time in QuasiSpace, Arilou DNA is prone to abnormalities and defects, and human DNA can be "spliced in" to alleviate this. Like many of Star Control 3's "revelations", this is generally disregarded as non-canonical by fans of the series,[8] although it would explain alien abductions.

Chenjesu

The Chenjesu are a crystalline silicon race of aliens who interact with their ships using lightning-like "fingers". The only other known beings of similar composition are the extinct Taalo.

They naturally evolved intelligence, and since they have no natural predators, they are entirely non-aggressive. Their most preferred activity is calm philosophical discourse.[9]

The Chenjesu were the first race humans came in contact with, in 2112 at Ceres,[10] when they arrived to offer the humans membership in the Alliance of Free Stars to fight the Ur-Quan.

After successfully resisting the Ur-Quan for a long time, the Ur-Quan deployed their precursor battle platform, the Sa-Matra, and destroyed the Chenjesu and Mmrnmhrm fleets. The two races both chose to be slave shielded on Procyon II and synthesized their races to create a more powerful composite race. This synthesis was powered by solar energy and expected to take 60 years. In Star Control II the human Captain used the Mycon "Sun Device" to supply the energy needed to accelerate the process and create the Chmmr race.

Earthling

See also: Human

The Earthlings are a member race of the Alliance of Free Stars in Star Control, and the founding race of the New Alliance in Star Control II. They rely on weaponry derived from the 1980s SDI projects, such as point-defense lasers and guided nuclear missiles. In the Star Control universe, humanity sealed away the nuclear weapons from the Cold War era in 'Peace Vaults'; when they revealed how much ordnance they had stockpiled, even the more technologically advanced races were in awe of the sheer volume of destructive power.

Ilwrath

The Ilwrath resemble large red spiders with four visible (probably compound) eyes on top of their head, large mandibles where eyes would usually be in humanoids, and below that a mouth. Their mandibles allow them to eat, communicate, and have uses as weapons. Their appendages will regenerate if lost or damaged, often a result of their many rituals of pain. When talking, they sound bloodthirsty and sometimes draw words out, and sometimes inhale when talking about their religious tortures with fondness. In the game, every word they speak is capitalized. Their ship type, the Avenger, is armed with a short-range flamethrower and a cloaking device, making it one of the trickier ships to pilot and to pilot against.

The Ilwrath consider themselves evil, believing their gods would never reward a species that was not evil with their baleful grace. Since evil is sanctioned by their culture, it would be "bad" to do otherwise, and the Ilwrath grow extremely angry when people point this out. The Pkunk have a theory that the Ilwrath were once so noble, pure and good that they could get no better. Then they paradoxically did become better which somehow "flipped" them over to being as evil as possible (a programming joke, see Signed number representations). Religion is the primary factor in Ilwrath society. They worship two gods, Dogar and Kazon; later shown to be part of a particularly despicable Umgah 'practical joke'. They begin their religion at birth, believing that their first frenzied gorging is the hatchlings showing their respect to the gods. During their "Dark Ages", the Ilwrath worshipped many gods from Awk of the Seds (a reference to the Unix tools AWK and sed) to Zith of the Pelt. After a priestly body was formed, the priests announced that only Dogar and Kazon were the true gods and should be worshipped. All heretics were to be eaten, and all possessions were delivered to holy sites or priestly dwellings. The priests controlled the Ilwraths' method of worshipping until the Ilwrath could "Do No Better". In modern times, the Ilwrath believe their gods speak to them through their hyperwave radio.

For eons the Ilwrath lived a subsistence existence ("appendage to mandible"). Thousands of years before the game, the Ilwrath started worshipping Dogar and Kazon. They advanced their technology to create more sophisticated tools for murder. Then, c. 2126, the Ur-Quan improved their starships and weapons and they joined their Hierarchy of Battle Thralls. During the war, the Ilwrath attacked the Humans, and probably also ate them. When Earth fell to the Ur-Quan, their gods made clear their desire for death by the billions. The Ilwrath transported thousands of portable altars and millions of blood gowns and fillet knives to Earth, but were disappointed when the Ur-Quan commanded that the humans be left alive. After the Alliance of Free Stars fell, they used native animals for their religious ceremonies, until all the lifeforms on their planet were extinct. In c. 2147, the Ilwrath believed that they received guidance to attack the Pkunk, and use them for their ceremonies. Sometime within the 5-year timespan of Star Control 2 from 2155 to 2159 or 2160, depending on events, the player has the opportunity to use a hyperwave caster to impersonate Dogar and Kazon. If the player orders them to stop attacking the Pkunk and seek other prey, the Ilwrath attack the Thraddash.

Mmrnmhrm

The Mmrnmhrm (/ˈmɜːrnəmhɜːrm/ MUR-nəm-hurm) are a sentient robotic race of unknown origin. They resemble a series of metal discs with a sensor in the top disc, probably acting as "eyes" to the Mmrnmhrm. Where the Mmrnmhrm came from is unknown - their Mother Ark arrived in our region of the galaxy and promptly built a large number of Mmrnmhrm and then shut down. Mmrnmhrm have no reproductive organs and cannot build more of their kind.

They quickly met and befriended the Chenjesu, and they shared the same region of space in peaceful coexistence. When the Ur-Quan armada appeared they were the core group that formed the Alliance of Free Stars to try and fight back the enslavers. In Star Control, the Mmrnmhrm played the part of sidekicks to the Chenjesu. Plot-wise they had little weight or importance of their own.

The Mmrnmhrm were forced to surrender after the Ur-Quan deployed the Sa-Matra against them and the Chenjesu. The Mmrnmhrm and Chenjesu opted to be slave shielded together on the Chenjesu homeworld at Procyon and joined to become the Chmmr race.

Mycon

The Mycon resemble fungi 0.5 to 3.5 m tall that thrive in hostile, volcanic environments created for themselves by implanting "Deep Children" (living terraforming devices) under the crust of a blue, life-bearing planet. The outcome is known as a "Shattered World" with significant crust destabilization and rivers of magma on the surface. Amphibole structures allow them to withstand such extreme environments. Star Control 3 revealed them to be terraforming tools of the Precursors, whose programming drifted after their Creators' mysterious disappearance. Mycon reproduce by budding and offspring apparently reach instant maturity. They can genetically modify themselves by thought.

Mycon are hard to understand. Mycon ramblings seldom seem to attach any relevance to what's said to them even when they acknowledge the presence of others. Mycon receive select memories of their forebears at birth and dead Mycon from millennia ago can speak through their descendants, one of the few times a Mycon will refer to itself as I. They are lucid when presented with knowledge of a world ideal for their Deep Children.

A central concept to the race is Juffo-Wup, the hot light in the darkness, which is like a religion for the Mycon. Mycon live for it, and only for it. Juffo-Wup seems to be positive, connected to them or their spread. Related are the Non, what is not Juffo-Wup, and Void, what Non that does not become Juffo-Wup must become Void. Juffo-Wup seems to refer to the Mycon and anything under their control, Non is other life and planets that the Mycon have not yet violently terraformed to their liking, and Void is anything else, such as space or dust. The Mycon claim that Juffo-Wup recognizes Non that cannot be turned into Void at a certain time. The Ur-Quan are an example of this. Instead, the Mycon will attempt to ally with the Non until such time as they can destroy it, turning it into Void.

Mycon are capable of clearly purposeful action and pursue large-scale objectives. The specific nature of those objectives is not clear; they are the only known race to actively seek out the Ur-Quan to become willing members of the Hierarchy. The Mycon have existed for over two hundred thousand years, though their Sphere of Influence is only medium-sized.

During the second game, they fight against the Alliance of Free Stars.[5] After the Alliance's collapse they serve as unattended combat thralls of the Kzer-Za, who are otherwise preoccupied, and only concern themselves with the spread of Juffo-Wup. The Mycon spread was responsible for the cataclysmic destruction of the Syreen homeworld Syra, and the almost total extermination of their race. When the Syreen find out, they trick the Mycon into an ambush and destroy their fleet of Podships.

During the third game, the League can learn the secrets of the Deep Children, which appear to be young Mycon. They appear to be born with their own distinct personalities, but normally the elders catch them and imprint their own personalities into them, transforming their mentality to that of the "elder" Mycon. In effect, they are mentally enslaved by their elders at birth. As with all SC3 changes to the races, this is considered non-canon by the fanbase and the creators of the Star Control universe.

A powerful device, the Plasma Regroover, could be used to undo the Precursor programming of the Mycons, essentially transforming all Kessari quadrant Mycons into Deep Children.

Shofixti

The Shofixti are a marsupial-like species that were uplifted by the Yehat. Their culture has a code of honor similar to Bushidō, and their spacecraft are equipped with a powerful self-destruct bomb called a "Glory Device" that makes their otherwise weak Scout a dangerous kamikaze weapon.

With their friends the Yehat, at the beginning of the Ur-Quan Slave War they joined the Alliance of Free Stars against the Hierarchy of Battle Thralls. At the end of the war (between Star Control I and II), after the conquest of the Humans and the withdrawal of the Yehat, the Shofixti caused their own sun to go nova with a Precursor device to destroy the Ur-Quan invasion fleet. This destroyed their entire species, with the exception of a group of female Shofixti in cryogenic suspension in Admiral ZEX's zoo and the brothers Tanaka and Katana who continued to patrol their sterile home system. The Shofixti are capable of very rapid breeding, such that it is possible in Star Control II to repopulate the Shofixti race by bringing the survivors of the two genders together, giving a significant increase in manpower to the New Alliance in only a few months.

Spathi

Spathi resemble shellfish with large familial units, often numbering in the tens of thousands, with one female parent. They receive only a small amount of attention from their parent, and it is rare to be referred to directly by name. Spathi culture is based almost entirely around cowardice, paranoia and self-preservation. Their cowardice makes them easily bullied into doing things against their will. Dialogue with Spathi contains references to "monsters" and a supposed "Ultimate Evil", which lurks just outside the range of the most sensitive sensors. This rampant neurosis makes them a favorite target for the pranks of the Umgah. All Spathi technology was developed as a response to fear; they went from stone age technology to primitive nuclear-powered rockets in under a century, purely to get off their planet to escape predators that suddenly appeared on their homeworld. (These predators were introduced into their environment by the Umgah, of course.) They resided for a time on Spathiwa's moon because they feared these "Evil Ones". Spathi will fight if they cannot run away or if their allies are scarier than their enemies and force them to. Their ship design reflects their personalities; the Eluder is extremely fast, packs in a huge crew (to reduce any individual crewman's chance of dying in combat) and has its most powerful weapon mounted on the rear so it can be fired while running away.

The Spathi were defeated by the Ur-Quan before the first war erupted. They were offered the usual terms of slavery: become Battle Thralls or be forever encased beneath an impenetrable shield. The Spathi were ecstatic at the prospect of a life of safety beneath a permanent shield, however, due to the Umgah delivering their response deciding to play a joke and swapping the white (fallow slave) baton with the black, they accidentally became battle thralls and were forced to fight against the Alliance of Free Stars.[5] After the first war concluded, the Spathi and Ilwrath were stationed on Earth's moon to ensure that the defeated humans did not try to break the conditions of their surrender. Shortly after, the Ilwrath left and the Spathi began to "strategically redeploy" themselves farther and farther from Earth. At the time of Star Control II, they are stationed on Pluto, leaving a few bio-droids on Earth's moon to make it look like they were still there. After the player clears the "Evil Ones" from Spathiwa for them, the Spathi briefly join the New Alliance, but after studying the shield around Earth, they abruptly left the Alliance to encase themselves in an Ur-Quan slave shield.

Syreen

The Syreen are a melange of "green-skinned space babe" clichés, full of double entendres and a phallic starship, the Penetrator. The Syreen are biologically compatible with humans. This is an acknowledged evolutionary impossibility (two life forms never evolve in exactly the same way in separate biosystems) and would have been examined had the races not been engaged in a fight for their lives when they met. Their name is a reference to the Sirens in Greek mythology, whose enchanting song brought sailors dangerously close to nearby cliffs, where they would crash on the rocks and drown. Syreen look like blue-skinned humans with slightly luminescent eyes and "certain parts".

The Syreen evolved on the lush world of Syra, which was Earth's near twin, though warmer and somewhat more hospitable. It hosted a peaceful utopia in harmony with nature from agrarian tribes to the first steps of interstellar exploration, until a stray asteroid smashed into the world and penetrated into the mantle. A year later, a series of supervolcanoes and fissures erupted planetwide, incinerated Syra's continents, poisoned its atmosphere, and shattered the crust. The largely female Space Patrol was the only faction off-planet, leaving the race with under 10000 members, 500 male. They added stardrives to anything that could be made to hold air and set out to the stars. Several decades later, the sublight Habitat fleet found itself in the middle of the Alliance-Hierarchy war and joined the Alliance out of necessity, being unable to defend itself. When the Alliance fell, the Syreen chose imprisonment on their world over thralldom as their slavery. Since the Syreen had none, the Ur-Quan gave them the terran planet of Gaia in the Betelgeuse system as the closest equivalent. When the human Captain asks for Syreen aid against the Ur-Quan in Star Control II they are initially reluctant to risk losing their new home, but when the "asteroid" that destroyed Syra is revealed to be a Mycon Deep Child terraformer, the Syreen join the Captain in return for revenge against the Mycon. They retrieved their starships, destroyed the Mycon fleet and joined the New Alliance against the Ur-Quan.

Talana, clad in a near-exact replica of Princess Leia's slave girl outfit, is the commander of the Ur-Quan resupply starbase orbiting Gaia at the time of Star Control II. The player delivers to her proof of the Mycon's culpability and has the ability to engage in heavily implied sexual relations. The two go on to have children.

Developer Paul Reiche III addressed the Syreen in a questions-and-answers session in 2007, describing the Syreen song's strength as a "glass of white wine" in comparison to the Dnyarri compulsion being "intravenous lab alcohol" plus a "horse tranquilizer".[11] In the same session, he stated that the Syreen are supposed to always be "sexy and strong", criticising their graphic design in the sequel as "spooky and unpleasant".

Umgah

The Umgah were the second race in the quadrant (after the Thraddash) to be defeated by the Ur-Quan and to join their Hierarchy of Battle Thralls. The Umgah are large, pink or lilac-colored blobs, with several mouths, eyes, and tentacles at seemingly random positions in their bodies. All Umgah are born with agoraphobia, and prefer biotic environments in their ships. They are immensely skilled at bioengineering and often add or remove limbs and organs from themselves for fun.

Umgah discussion is full of jokes, and their sense of humor is renowned (or, more accurately, feared) throughout the galaxy. Umgah "jokes" include using a HyperWave caster to send messages to other civilizations, claiming to be the Ilwrath Gods or the Spathi "Grand Master Planet Eater", and changing the Spathi response to the Ur-Quan surrender terms. Their pranks have resulted in several thousand Spathi dead of acute anxiety, a six-year holy war by the Ilwrath against the Pkunk, and the Spathi coerced in to serving as Battle Thralls instead of fallow slaves as they desired.

When the Arilou discovered a living Talking Pet, they took it to the Umgah for medical treatment. The Umgah were able to restore it to health, but their genetic alterations restored the full psychic potential of the creature, a Dnyarri, and led to the entire Umgah race being psychically dominated. The Captain later freed the Umgah from the Dynarri's control.

Ur-Quan Kzer-Za

The Ur-Quan Kzer-Za (referred to simply as Ur-Quan until the appearance of the Kohr-Ah in StarCon II) are the main villains of the series.[5] They were originally large brown centipede-like creatures who evolved from solitary hunters on their harsh home planet. While they were still using crude atomic vehicles to explore their system, the Ur-Quan encountered the Taalo. The fiercely territorial Ur-Quan attacked them, but the patient Taalo eventually won the Ur-Quan's friendship—the only race to ever do so. The Taalo convinced the Ur-Quan to join the Sentient Milieu, a cooperative of alien races. Due to their solitary nature, the Ur-Quan were frequently used as scouts and explorers and were active in finding Precursor artifacts.

After many centuries in the Milieu an Ur-Quan scout mission discovered the Dnyarri, who quickly enslaved or destroyed the entire Milieu. The Dnyarri genetically experimented on the Brown Ur-Quan and separated them into two sub-species: the Green Ur-Quan, to be scientists and technicians and the Black Ur-Quan for basic soldiers and laborers. (No further mention is made of Brown Ur-Quan.) After many centuries of mindless enslavement, and at great cost, the Ur-Quan managed to free themselves and defeat the Dnyarri.

The two sub-species of the Ur-Quan developed doctrines to ensure they would not be slaves again. The green Ur-Quan, renamed the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za in honor of the scientist who freed them, devised the "Path of Now and Forever", which states that all non-Ur-Quan sentient life be enslaved to the Ur-Quan as battle thralls, or forever be imprisoned on their planets under impenetrable force-fields. The Black Ur-Quan, renamed the Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah after their new leader, felt that only their "Eternal Doctrine", the annihilation of non-Ur-Quan life, would keep them safe from slavery. This led to a war between the Kohr-Ah and the Kzer-Za known as The Doctrinal Conflict, which devastated both sides. The Kzer-Za eventually triumphed through the discovery of an enormous Precursor battle platform named the Sa-Matra or 'Great Trophy'. Defeated, the Kohr-Ah were sent in the opposite direction of the galaxy as the Kzer-Za, with the understanding that when the two species met again, they would fight The Doctrinal Conflict once more, with the victor claiming the Sa-Matra.

VUX

The VUX are green, tentacled creatures with a long snout and one visible eye. They are noted for their fiendishly extreme dislike of humans (with the exception of Admiral ZEX, a sexual deviant who is attracted to humans), and will be more than happy to engage in combat whenever the revolting visage of a human appears on their communication screens. They are referred to in all capital letters by nearly every other alien race in the game, including themselves, and their captains also capitalize their three-letter names as well. This has caused the humans to joke that VUX stands for Very Ugly Xenoform.

The first encounter between humans and VUX was between Captain Rand and an unknown VUX captain. Upon seeing the new alien species for the first time, Rand burst out with the first thing that came to mind, which happened to be a comment about how disgustingly ugly the alien was. Rand was unaware that the VUX translating technology was so far advanced that his words were relayed to the VUX captain perfectly. This botched first encounter between the two races soured relations long enough for the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za to subjugate the VUX who chose to become battle thralls. The VUX then eagerly fight against the humans.[5] In Star Control II it is revealed that the VUX's reason for not joining the Alliance was due to their own extreme disgust with the appearance of humans. Captain Rand's overheard comment had been merely a scapegoat, for they find humans far more disgusting than humans find them.

In Star Control 3, they are revealed to be "half" of the Vyro-Ingo race, and can be reunited in the course of the storyline. As with all SC3 changes to the races, this is considered non-canon by the fanbase and the creators of the Star Control universe.

Yehat

The Yehat are fearsome and honorable pterodactyl-like creatures who were allied with the Alliance of Free Stars in Star Control. For some reason they speak with a notable Scottish accent when their language is translated to English. The Yehat are ruled over by a Queen, who rules over the various Yehat clans. Historically, this has been one from the Veep-Neep Clan. The Yehat are very close allies with the Shofixti.

In Star Control I the Yehat are the backbone of the Alliance Starfleet, due to their advanced weapons technology and their intensely martial society.[12] The rule of the Veep-Neep Queen is based on the Yehat never being defeated under a Veep-Neep, so to save face, the Queen orders them to defect to the Ur-Quan side late in the war. This is a source of great shame to many Yehat, compounded when their friends the Shofixti chose to annihilate their species in a blaze of glory rather than surrender.

As such, at the beginning of Star Control II, the Yehat are Ur-Quan battle thralls, and while sympathetic to the human Captain they will not give any aid. Once the Captain brings them evidence that their adopted children, the Shofixti, are still alive, it triggers a civil war among the Yehat. Eventually the rebels win and the Veep-Neep Queen is deposed and the Yehat join the New Alliance.

The Pkunk are an offshoot of the Yehat race. In Star Control II they decide to reunite with their Yehat brethren, despite the fact that the Yehat despise them. The human Captain tries to dissuade them, but eventually the Pkunk make contact with the Yehat and the Yehat seemingly destroy them. In the final battle against the Sa-Matra, a combined Pkunk and Yehat fleet arrives to reinforce the Captain, and they reveal that after much perseverance the Pkunk persuaded the Yehat to accept them after all, and the Yehat even chose a Pkunk Queen as the replacement for their deposed Veep-Neep queen.

Introduced in Star Control II

Star Control II introduced eleven playable races: Chmmr, Druuge, Melnorme, Orz, Pkunk, Slylandro, Supox, Thraddash, Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah, Utwig, and Zoq-Fot-Pik.

Chmmr

The Chmmr (pronounced ch'mer with 'ch' as in "chance") are a fusion of the crystalline Chenjesu and the mechanical Mmrnmhrm. The species was formed in Star Control II, when the player uses the Sun Device to speed up the fusion process, which would have normally taken several decades. They ally with humans [5] and are needed to complete the game and destroy the Sa-Matra.

It's unclear whether the Chmmr race is what the Chenjesu and Mmrnmhrm intended to become, or an unintended consequence of the Captain's interference in the synthesis process. They have assumed the Chenjesu's old position as the unofficial leaders of the New Alliance.

The appearance of the Chmmr was changed slightly in Star Control 3. They are still a mixture of mechanical and crystalline objects, but the bond appears to be less complete, and they float. The interior of the structure shines moving lights through the crystals depending on the mood of the Chmmr. In Star Control 3 the Chmmr are separated into Chenjesu and Mmrnmhrm by a Daktaklakpak device, but the player again joins the two races using another sun device.

Dnyarri

The Dnyarri are a race of small brown toad-like creatures, physically weak but with an extremely powerful ability to mentally enslave other sentients. An Ur-Quan scout mission discovered the Dnyarri and was forced to bring thousands of Dnyarri to the heart of the Sentient Milieu. The Dnyarri used their psychic powers to dominate the minds of the Milieu races, conquering the entire Milieu in record time. The Taalo were immune, so the Dnyarri compelled the other races of the Milieu to annihilate them. The Ur-Quan were the favored slaves of the Dnyarri, and the most susceptible to their psychic powers. The Dnyarri began to genetically experiment and separated the Brown Ur-Quan into two sub-species: the Green Ur-Quan were scientists and administrators and the Black Ur-Quan were basic soldiers and laborers. As far as anyone knows, the original Brown Ur-Quan became extinct.

Over thousands of years, the Dnyarri eventually became lax in their mental domination. A green Ur-Quan scientist named Kzer-Za noticed that the Dnyarri "detached" psychic control from an Ur-Quan suffering near-lethal pain. Using one of the few moments of mental freedom the Dnyarri gave their slaves, he injected his body with a lethal and painful poison, and used the mental freedom to broadcast the news across the empire. Ur-Quan slaves everywhere began burning themselves and hacking their own bodies to give them the freedom needed to kill the nearest Dnyarri. This was refined into a brain implant known as an Excruciator which constantly causes the user to feel extreme pain, making them unbearable for Dnyarri to control, but leaving the Ur-Quan's body whole and functional.

Now free, the Ur-Quan decided that extinction was too good for the Dnyarri. Instead the Dnyarri were genetically modified into sub-sentient "Talking Pets", retaining psychic powers only to allow translation and communication with alien species, something the Ur-Quan now considered demeaning.

Star Control II players have a chance to interact with a Dnyarri. An Ur-Quan wreck was discovered by the Arilou, which included a wounded Talking Pet that the Arilou gave to the Umgah, who possessed better biological and medicinal technologies. The Umgah saved the creature, but accidentally unlocked the Talking Pet's latent powers; the Dnyarri put his psychic powers to use and took over the Umgah home planet. If the player forces the Dnyarri to reveal itself without adequate protection, the Dnyarri will compel the player to fly into the middle of the Ur-Quan civil war battlefield to await death at the hands of his enemies. The player must find a Taalo mind shield, which provides near-immunity to the Dnyarri to allow the player to defeat it and free the Umgah. Once captured, the Dnyarri proves essential in the attack on the Sa-Matra by creating an illusionary diversion, distracting the Ur-Quan defense fleet and allowing the player to attack the Sa-Matra with minimal defenses. While the Dnyarri will tell his story, and the story of his race, the Taalo shield is not perfect; if the Dnyarri grows impatient or angry, he can still exert enough psychic control to force the player to stop asking questions, which hints at the malicious nature of the Dnyarri. The Dnyarri was "accidentally" left in the hold of the Captain's flagship, which was sacrificed to destroy the Sa-Matra, while the Captain and his crew ejected in an escape pod. The game's credit sequence reveals that the Dnyarri managed to get away from the ship at the last second.

Druuge

The Druuge are a race of horned, pig-like aliens that are notorious for their insatiable greed and callous treatment of other races. Their planet and the entirety of its resources are owned by the Crimson Corporation, of which every Druuge is a member and shareholder. They believe that the purpose of every individual Druuge is to serve the corporation; those who relinquish their membership are convicted of stealing corporate air, and are instantly sentenced to death. Anyone who threatens the group's profit margin due to illness, debt, or old age is thrown into the furnaces. The Druuge justify their actions with conveniently convoluted legal and ethical systems. For example, they hold unarmed travelers in their territory responsible for encouraging piracy, as their vulnerable ships are likely to attract belligerent plunderers. Therefore, in order to prevent piracy, any Druuge vessel may attack and plunder such ships and penalize their crews with indefinite slavery. Their ships consume crew to fuel the engines, and the player can pay for items and resources by selling crew members. This has an increasingly negative effect back home if done. There is always a better way to get the Druuge's few important items. The Druuge's unscrupulous personality was inspired by Paul Reiche's negotiations with TSR and Electronic Arts.[13]

Melnorme

The Melnorme are a race of merchants, primarily in the business of buying and selling information. The name is a reference to Mel Tormé, the singer.[13] They provide history, current events, fuel, and technology in return for biological data and the locations of certain colorful worlds assembled (or found) by the Precursors known as Rainbow Worlds. They use large Trader vessels to seek out, contact, and strike deals with potential customers. Though in possession of a great deal of information and technology, the Melnorme come across as benign and harmless. While trading with them is not required to complete Star Control II, abstaining from it makes the game vastly harder to finish.

The Melnorme are highly secretive of themselves and their origins, but their similarities have led many to believe that the Melnorme are the descendants of the Mael-Num. This link was later confirmed outside of the game by the game designers.[13] While they are technically ready to divulge such information, the prices are ludicrous. To learn why their bridge turns purple, for instance, costs more credits than the player can possess in the game. They based their culture entirely on equivalent trade and reject the concept of charity, finding it highly offensive. Though the Melnorme are by definition mercantile, they deal fairly with the protagonist and sell trustworthy information. They place a great emphasis on colour, to the point of basing their own names on different shades, such as Trade Master Greenish of the starship Inevitably Successful in All Circumstances.

Orz

The Orz are fish-like creatures that live in what used to be Androsynth space. They are yellow and roughly spherical, with a stub too small to be a tail, two eyes on stalks, a large set of gills, four tentacles, and a beak. Their ships are filled with liquid ethanol, and they appear to be somewhat similar to parrotfish. The Orz language is excessively unorthodox, and translation computers in the game are not particularly good at deciphering it. With effort from the player at least some degree of understanding can be gained. They can join an alliance with the humans.[5] This race has been described by reviewer Francois Laramee as "disturbingly scary".[1]

The Arilou imply that the Orz are manifestations of a single extra-dimensional being; even the Orz refer to themselves as 'fingers'. In essence, all Orz are the same creature. This was confirmed by the game's developers, Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III, in a chat on EFnet in 1998.[14]

In Star Control II, the Orz seemed to have displaced the Androsynth, who were apparently conducting experiments with other dimensions. This made them visible to the Orz. As a result, the Androsynth disappeared, leaving their cities behind in ruins. The Orz are very sensitive about the Androsynth, and will fight when pressured to tell about their fate. According to the Arilou, even knowing too much about other dimensions makes one vulnerable to extra-dimensional dangers, such as the Orz, and the Arilou suggest that this is what happened to the Androsynth.

This ominous pattern continues in Star Control 3, in which the Orz destroy the Supox, for reasons that are not entirely clear. Later on, the Orz betray their alliances to the League and attack the player. Since the Orz of Star Control 3 followed the trends set in the game before, it could be argued that the Orz were the race most faithfully carried over into Star Control 3, which was otherwise widely derided for continuity problems and ham-handed retconning.

Pkunk

The Pkunk are a race of bird-like offshoots of the Yehat. They ally with the protagonist in Star Control II [5] as soon as he meets them. They resemble a stereotypical phony psychic, consistently agreeing with anything mystical the player says and basing all their decisions on universal harmony and similar grand-sounding concepts. However, the Pkunk really are powerful psychics who provide hints to the player, even going so far as actual clairvoyance. The Pkunk believe that their psychotic and genocidal neighbors, the Ilwrath, were perfect beings in their past lives, and that the karmic consequence of their excessive goodness was their totally evil reincarnation. To avoid such a fate, the Pkunk strive to remain just short of perfection. They accomplish this by being slightly annoying to whoever they encounter. When flying their ships in battle, they constantly taunt and insult their opponents, a practice that powers their ships. They state that, as they are so inherently happy and carefree, they must work themselves up by screaming insults. Fitting with their emphasis on past lives and mysticism, destroyed Pkunk ships can be supernaturally reborn, suddenly rejoining the battle with all their energy restored and crew revived.

Slylandro

The Slylandro are a race of ancient and friendly gas bag people that inhabit a gas giant planet in star system Beta Corvi they call Source. The Slylandro are restricted to a narrow band on their surfaceless world. Below their inhabited area are "the Depths", which grow darker and more hostile as one ventures deeper. When a Slylandro sinks deep enough into the depths, their gas bag is almost ruptured by the pressure, causing scarring to occur which is believed to attract potential mates. Above is "the Void", which when ventured into, causes a Slylandro to "grow giddy and behave inappropriately". The Slylandro see on a spectrum band where they are opaque to each other and are very shy about humans seeing their "glowy bits" (their reproductive organs).

The Slylandro have no technology and no means of building any. Attempts to construct any but the simplest of tools or devices have resulted in them becoming too heavy and dragging their inventor to the Depths. As a result, the Slylandro play very little part in the greater scheme of things and have been discovered and rediscovered by several subsequent civilizations. Due to Source's low-stimuli environment and the Slylandro's inability to venture off-planet, they have become intensely curious about other worlds and races.

Since the Slylandro have no methods of physically recording history, long chants of past events have to be memorized in order to preserve the past. The standard measurement of time for the Slylandro is the Drahn, which is equal to 4 million rotations of the planet, or about 6460 Earth years. Their long life-spans and equally long memories mean that they are surprisingly knowledgeable about ancient galactic history. They even have records of contact with the Precursors.

Shortly before the start of Star Control II the Slylandro trade information about their unique physiology with the Melnorme for an automated self-replicating probe, designed to seek out and contact alien civilisations for them. Unfortunately, due to a programming error by the Slylandro, the probe considers everything, including alien spacecraft, as replication material and begins to attack and devour anything it meets to create copies of itself that go on to do the same. The player in Star Control II, upon explaining this to the Slylandro, is given a self-destruct code for the probes that allows him to greatly reduce the threat.

Supox

The Supox Utricularia are allies of the Utwig. They are a race of kind, sentient plant creatures who evolved from a species of semi-mobile symbionts.[15] In the setting, the evolutionary path of sentient plants is considered an established scientific impossibility, one that Supox science has verified. Many Supox attribute the incongruity of their existence to the favor of "Higher Powers."[15][16]

The Supox have always been symbionts. During their long evolutionary path they forged symbiotic relationships with several races of plants and animals on their homeworld, trading "reproductive assistance" for nutrients. The Supox look to the Utwig for guidance, and use the Utwig culture as a model for their own. In return, they give the Utwig the emotional support they need.[17]

In Star Control II the Supox give the Captain the Utwig Ultron, hoping that he can repair it. Beyond that they mainly play a support role to the Utwig. In Star Control 3 they are part of the expedition but their colony ships are destroyed, with the Orz implicated, and hence play no active part in the game.

Thraddash

The Thraddash are a noisy and extremely aggressive race of rhinoceros-like aliens. They constantly bluster and boast while interacting with the protagonist, providing a thin facade over the actual inadequacy of their military and its primitive technology. This backwardness, the result of their tendency to repeatedly bring themselves to the brink of cultural annihilation by constantly nuking each other, does not deter them from throwing their outdated forces into battle at the slightest provocation.

The Thraddash have had 18 different planetary cultures. Each time their culture reached a certain point a new ideology for a more perfect culture arrived, and they fought a bitter war and started a new culture from scratch. The earliest Culture mentioned by the Thraddash is Culture Two, which glorified fortitude and stoic resistance to pain. The most important artifact common to all Thraddash cultures is the Aqua Helix. Culture Nine was the only culture to question its significance. Culture Nine considered excessive the amount of blood and passion expended over the artifact. Unfortunately, their complete defeat at the hands of Culture Ten after only two weeks of dominance only reinforced the Thraddash belief in the sanctity of the Aqua Helix.

Culture Fourteen is the second Culture to question traditional Thraddash values. Shortly after achieving dominance, Culture Fourteen claimed that the Thraddash method of cultural evolution was wrong. They claimed that every inter-Culture conflict set the Thraddash back 500 years. As with Culture Nine, Thraddash tradition again proved itself immune to change as Culture Fourteen was destroyed by Culture Fifteen after a reign of only ten years. Interestingly enough, the violence ensuing from Culture Fourteen's replacement only set the Thraddash back by "two, three hundred years tops", hence disproving Culture Fourteen's main tenet.

Culture Eighteen was the dominant Thraddash culture when the Ur-Quan invaded. Their swift defeat by the Ur-Quan put their superiority into question, and an attempt for a resolution was made by the means of a thermonuclear exchange. The Ur-Quan in orbit around the Thraddash homeworld did not allow such intra-species fighting, and intercepted all of the warheads with their fighter vessels. The Ur-Quan's intervention, however, only postponed the inevitable. Shortly after the failed thermonuclear weapon exchange, Culture Eighteen's challengers introduced a super-lethal poison into the air and water, ending the reign of Culture Eighteen.

After the poisoning of Culture Eighteen, the Ur-Quan executed all of the emerging Culture's leaders, and arbitrarily assigned leaders. The Ur-Quan explained that any further violations of the Slave Laws would be punished by the eradication of the Thraddash species. Culture Nineteen elected to become Battle Thralls upon being enslaved by the Ur-Quan. As such, they expected to be part of the Ur-Quan's offensive in the quadrant. Their relative military weakness, however, as well as their predisposition to pick fights with other slave races, especially the Umgah and Ilwrath, made the Ur-Quan decide that they would be more of a liability than an asset in the coming battles, and ordered them to "guard the flank." The modern Thraddash have improved their Torch ships with an effective Reeunk Afterburner (named posthumously after its creator, who blew himself up discovering it), and are itching to prove their worth to the Ur-Quan.

Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah

The Kohr-Ah are a subspecies of the Ur-Quan. After freeing themselves from the Dnyarri, the Kohr-Ah decided to adopt the "Eternal Doctrine," which is a plan to protect the Ur-Quan from enslavement ever again by exterminating all non-Ur-Quan sentients in the galaxy. The Kohr-Ah are physically similar to the Kzer-Za except their skin is black and their eyes are a deep red. They are led by a matriarch called the Kohr-Ah Primat.

The Kohr-Ah were not present in Earth's part of the galaxy during the first Alliance-Hierarchy war in Star Control I. Star Control II takes place during the Second Doctrinal Conflict between the Kzer-Za and Kohr-Ah Ur-Quan, after which the Kohr-Ah will kill all sentient life if victorious. The Kohr-Ah carry out the words of their doctrine to ensure their freedom and security, and to a lesser degree, they believe they are doing those they cleanse a service: the opportunity to be reincarnated as an Ur-Quan, the superior race. Perhaps as a result of this dispassionate view, neither the Kohr-Ah nor the Kzer-Za will insult or lie to their adversaries.

Utwig

The Utwig are a race of fatalist and sophisticated humanoids; they are mentors to the Supox and the keepers of the Ultron device, which they believe provides happiness and enlightenment. Utwig are required to wear masks for as long as they live. They have developed "Mask-Etiquette" for the thousands of masks they wear. Each is suitable for different activities, moods, festivals, and ceremonies. This custom was born in their ancient violent past, when they came to the conclusion that the expression of primal emotions upon faces was the source of war and violence. Therefore faces must be hidden in order for a culture to progress peacefully. The accidental destruction of the Ultron sent the entire species into a state of depression and resulted in the destruction of all masks except the Mask of Ultimate Embarrassment and Shame. Its subsequent reconstruction was more than enough to pull the previously unaffiliated Utwig and Supox into the war against the Ur-Quan. The Utwig has been described as "comic" by reviewer Francois Laramee.[1]

Zoq-Fot-Pik

The Zoq, Fot, Pik and Zebranky species all evolved on the same planet. The Zoq, Fot and Pik were non-carnivorous, but the Zebranky preyed on them. The Zoq, Fot and Pik races banded together, annihilated the Zebranky, and formed a cooperative union. They integrated so well that they no longer recall which of the races are Zoq, which are Fot, and which are Pik. Afterwards, they faced a dilemma: whether to develop technological and cultural sophistication, or to return to the forests and relax. They chose the latter.

For another fifty thousand years, the Zoq, the Fot and the Pik relaxed in the forests, until one day one of each race was walking up a steep path looking for something to eat, when a bolt of lightning struck nearby. The bolt of energy carved a wheel-shaped chunk of granite out of a cliff. As the rock began to roll down the hill, some dry grass got caught in its hole, and since the rock was still hot the grass caught on fire. Thus the Zoq, Fot, and Pik simultaneously discovered the wheel, fire, and religion. The wheel and fire were based on the rock, and religion developed when the Zoq was killed by the rolling rock and the remaining two decided that he had simply gone to "a better place".

The three species are said to feed on airborne zooplankton, solar and ambient energies, and rocky fungal clingers. It is never said exactly which species feeds on what, but there are some clues – the one on the right of the communication screenshot is shown blowing air out the three holes on its head, and the one on the left exclaims "our favorite" when speaking of rock clingers. Also, the green one on the left seems to be a botanical species, from her appearance, and, at one point, threatens to "blow a cloud of spores" in the face of the blue one, so she seems to absorb the sunlight. The function of the arm-like appendages on the leftmost creature are unknown, but possibly includes communication since they move when the creature "talks". Very little is known about the one-eyed creature in the center as neither of the other two mentions anything about it except that it never talks.

A satiric take on bad spectator sports, Frungy is a wildly popular sport among the Zoq-Fot-Pik. No details about the rules or concept are disclosed, although the Zoq-Fot-Pik (or at least the one on the right) are very glad to comment on how great, fun and interesting it is, making numerous references to Frungy throughout the game. Frungy, like most spectator sports, appears to have a governing organization. When beginning a new playthrough of The Ur-Quan Masters, a splash screen noting sponsorship by the Interstellar Frungy League is shown.

The Zoq-Fot-Pik are one of the first races encountered by the human captain in Star Control II, when the captain meets a scout ship near Rigel that gives him the co-ordinates of their homeworld hidden on the edge of the Ur-Quan conflict zone. The Zoq-Fot-Pik ally with the humans in return for protection from the Ur-Quan should they find them. While their material assistance is not great, their position makes them a valuable source of intelligence on the Ur-Quan and the progress of their war.

Minor races

Algolites
No information.
Burvixese
The Burvixese are sentient, turtle-like aliens native to Arcturus I. When the Gg had come under attack by the Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah, the Gg shared this information with its neighbors before they were annihilated by the Kohr-Ah. The Burvixese then warned the neighboring Druuge that a Kohr-Ah fleet was heading toward Druuge space following the Druuge's powerful hyperwave transmissions advertising their location and services for sale. Not wishing to share the fate of the Gg, the Druuge secretly installed a powerful hyperwave 'caster on the Burvixese moon and activated it while shutting down their own in hopes of tricking the Kohr-Ah fleet into thinking the Burvixese were the source of the Druuge hypercasts. Unfortunately for the Burvixese, the Kohr-Ah fell for the Druuge ruse and the Burvixese were destroyed in a genocidal orbital bombardment.
Drall
The Drall were a founding race of the Sentient Milieu. When the Dnyarri took control of the Milieu, the Drall were found to be inferior to the other slave races and the Dnyarri compelled the Ur-Quan and Mael-Num to destroy them.
Dramya
No information. The Melnorme mention that they had a war with them but no information is known about what they looked like or much about them.
Faz
The Faz were a member of the Sentient Milieu, and one of the few of those races which managed to survive the Dnyarri slave empire. They joined the Ur-Quan revolt and helped overthrow the Dnyarri, but were the first to fall victim to the Ur-Quan path of "Now and Forever". Since they refused to become Ur-Quan battle thralls, all of them were sent to their home planet and encased in a slave shield. Their eventual fate is unknown.
Gg
The Gg were known only by the now-extinct Burvixese race who communicated with the Gg via long range HyperWave broadcast. It was the Gg who warned the Burvixese of the approach of the hostile Kohr-Ah, as well as the accurate conjecture that the Kohr-Ah used HyperWave transmissions to locate their prey. Since the Gg were loath to engage in visual transmissions, their appearance must remain an eternal mystery for their world was incinerated by the Kohr-Ah in 2142.
Keel-Verezy
The Melnorme occasionally mention this race, citing conversations or trade dealings with them. When encountering a Melnorme ship it is possible that the Melnorme will mention that the Captain's Flagship almost hit a Keel-Verezy ship, which the Captain apparently did not see. The Melnorme say that the Keel-Verezy decline to show themselves to humans because they would "frighten them".
Mael-Num
The Mael-Num were members of the Sentient Milieu, and one of the few of those races which managed to survive the Dnyarri slave empire. Afterwards the Ur-Quan then set out to destroy them. The Mael-Num's question of why the Ur-Quan were doing this and the assertion that it was wrong caused delay amongst the Ur-Quan which led to them breaking out into the first doctrinal war. In the confusion the Mael-Num made their escape and supposedly were never seen again. Several sources within the game however hint that the Melnorme are in fact the Mael-Num, a fact confirmed by the developers.[13]
Nnngn
The Arilou explain their presence in the Hyperspace area surrounding the unstable QuasiSpace warp point as "hunting *Nnngn*", which they capture and then let go, since the *Nnngn* do not like to be confined. The player is told that he cannot catch *Nnngn* because he is "not quite solid enough".
Precursors
The Precursors are an ancient, technologically advanced race who ruled the galaxy for several thousands of years and then vanished. Various, hyper-advanced artifacts of theirs, including the Ultron and the Sa-Matra, have been pivotal in the fates of the younger races. Precursor devices have been discovered on various planets in the region of space accessible to the player, but only a single complete, intact installation has been found, the one which begets the beginning of the story of Star Control II, becoming activated by a group of Earthling scientists and assuming its role of creating a Precursor starship on the planet Unzervalt (also known as Vela II). The Precursors were big, shaggy creatures, known to the Slylandro as the Shaggy Ones.
Taalo
The Taalo (pronounced Tah-ay-lo) are the only member of the Sentient Milieu known to inhabit the region of space currently occupied by the New Alliance of Free Stars. According to Melnorme, Slylandro and other alien sources, they are large, rock-like creatures. The unusual silicon-based physiology of the Taalo did not trigger the instinctual territoriality of the Ur-Quan and the two races became friends, resulting in the entrance of the Ur-Quan into the Sentient Milieu. They were highly advanced technologically, their final creation being the Taalo Shield, created in desperation for their allies as a protection against Dnyarri mind-control (the Taalo themselves were naturally immune). After the arrival and enslavement of the rest of the Milieu by the Dnyarri, they were annihilated by their former allies, the Ur-Quan. The Orz report that some Taalo escaped to another dimension, where they interact somehow with the Orz.
Yuli
The Yuli are one of the seven founding member races of the Sentient Milieu. All that is known about them is that they were considered inferior by their Dnyarri slave masters, and ordered destroyed by their psychically-compelled Milieu allies, the Ur-Quan and Mael-Num.
Yuptar
Like the Yuli, the Yuptar were of the Sentient Milieu and fell victim to the psychic coercive abilities of the evil Dnyarri. Unlike the Yuli, the Yuptar survived the millennia of slavery only to become the first victim of the Kohr-Ah's "Eternal Doctrine" which required the "cleansing" of all non-Ur-Quan races.
Zebranky
The Zebranky preyed on the Zoq, Fot, and Pik. The three races banded together as the Zoq-Fot-Pik and annihilated the Zebranky.

Introduced in Star Control 3

Clairconctlar

The Clairconctlar are noble warriors of ancient heritage. Their origins are shrouded in history, unknown both to the Crux and the League. The craggy, stone-faced warriors are a mystery even to the Precursors, who suspect that they resemble the ancient Taalo race.

The Clairconctlar move and speak at a stately, nearly glacial pace. They are patient, and extremely slow to anger. When aroused, however, they move with deadly swiftness. They seek just and honourable contact with all other races. They have little patience for brutality and the kinds of atrocities marking much of the galaxy's development.

All living Clairconctlar were sired by their queen. The queen looks like a majestic blue-grey mountain, larger than many moons. At intermittent cycles, the queen emits a pale blue egg, called a Conc Rock. The Conc Rock is actually a mass of adamantine flakes. In the right circumstances, each flake has the potential to grow into a Clairconctlar. When the queen releases a Conc Rock, the Clairconctlar take it deep into a cave rich with mineral deposits. There, the flakes leach geologic nutrients from the stone walls, and grow into embryonic Clairconctlar.

Over the centuries of gestation, the flakes accrete enough matter to be born as living Clairconctlar. The Conc Rocks are vital to the Clairconctlar because they represent the continuation of the race. Anyone who knowingly destroys one is subject to a vengeance hunt. Clairconctlar forsake all other obligations until they hunt down and exterminate the rock-breaker.

When the Crux arrived in the Kessari Quadrant, the Clairconctlar resisted their incursions. The Crux saw no way to win a war against the indomitable stone warriors, and decided to defeat them with subterfuge. They recruited the Clairconctlar after the Daktaklakpak discovered the Clairconctlar's unusual means of reproduction. The Ploxis sent the K'tang to abduct the Clairconctlar queen.

After a bloody battle which greatly reduced K'tang forces, they subdued the queen. They took her to another planet and used Precursor technology to affix her to bedrock, and to record a phony message. The message tells the Clairconctlar that a debt of honour binds them to the Ploxis. The message does not divulge the origin of this debt, but the Crux created a convenient fiction in case the Clairconctlar get curious: The Clairconctlar, they claim, destroyed most of the Ploxis race. In truth, the Ploxis destroyed most of their own.

The queen calls out to her people for salvation, but the Crux has forbidden them to visit the planet where they hold her, without saying why. The Clairconctlar know the Crux is an empire without honour, but are duty-bound to serve until the queen tells them they're free of the debt. They're stuck - unless the League can find a way to liberate them.

The Clairconctlar are known for their valour in battle. The ship is built to launch deadly broadside attacks, then transport away with its warp beacon in order to recharge its energy reserves for another attack.

Daktaklakpak

A semi-sentient machine, Daktaklakpak form the technological wing of the Hegemonic Crux. They are arrogant because the Precursors made them; however, they do not realise they were created as maintenance drones. The Precursors prevented the Daktaklakpak from developing full sentience which, combined with their amateurish self-modification, resulted in an initially indecipherable language ("Daktaklakpak! 5576 squared! 888, warning!", etc.). Daktaklakpak is the beginning of an alphanumeric string that encodes their creation by the Precursor factories, and contains all information about them. They believe the same applies to the Eternal Ones.

They adore the Precursors and seek their artifacts. Though allied with the Crux, they would eagerly defect for the pursuit of greater knowledge. In particular, they quest to find the full name of Eternal Ones, which they believe will reveal the exact nature of the species. They will trade virtually anything for this information, including information on their allies, advanced weaponry, or services in battle. When the Daktaklakpak met the Ploxis (who were engaged in a civil war), they traded a Precursor vessel for several valuable artifacts. With this vessel the Ploxis Plutocrats and their K'tang allies won the war. In the Crux, the Daktaklakpak dissect new races and technologies provided by their allies, the Ploxis. This was the origin of the name of their ship: The Daktaklakpak Vivisector. They have several such craft stationed at every artifact site in the quadrant, presumably guarding them till excavation crew arrive.

Doog

The Doog are a species of extremely loyal and naive dog-lizards. Dull-witted, they lack the intelligence to understand that no matter how hard they worked, they could never make enough money to buy themselves out of their K'Tang-Ploxis owned financial slavery.

Exquivan

The Exquivans are a race of "monks" who try to reduce their own level of sentience in order to avoid being devoured by the Eternal Ones.

Eternal One

The Eternal Ones are a race of god-like, extra-dimensional beings who consume all sentient life in the Universe from time to time. According to the Daktaklakpak, the Eternal Ones' name comes from their DNA formulae that start as 'Eternal1'. Their complete name is their complete DNA formulae, something so complex that any sentience that tries to learn it all, organic or machine, becomes insane.

The Eternal Ones evolved from sentient organic beings until they lost their material bodies and became pure energy, reaching the verge of transforming into "something else". The Eternal Ones were afraid to evolve and lose their last physical vestige, and made a plan to stop their evolution that required consuming incredible quantities of sentient energy. To harvest sentience in great quantity, the Eternal Ones planted "seeds" throughout the universe that created all the other races in the Star Control universe. The Precursors became aware of this and devolved themselves to non-sentient animals and created semi-sentient machines called Daktaklakpak to re-evolve themselves when the harvest was over. Unfortunately the Daktaklakpak forgot their main objective and started to wander the galaxy collecting and protecting all Precursor technologies. The long-term purpose for the Precursors was to develop an artifact to optimize the harvest for the Eternal Ones. The Precursors had noticed that sentient harvest was incredibly inefficient, and theorized that by optimizing the harvest, there would not be a need for such genocide.

In Star Control 3, the player, as the human leader of the sentient races, foresees the harvest, and unites most races to find a solution. He finds the unfinished artifact and re-evolves a Precursor who helps the player finish it in time for the next harvest. The much greater efficiency of energy absorption allowed by the artifact allows the Eternal Ones to feed without requiring the death of all sentient creatures.

Harika & Yorn

The Harika & Yorn evolved as a symbiotic relationship with the warlike reptilian Harika eating the Yorn which serves to control the Yorn's population numbers. They also gain the advice of their somewhat more diplomatically minded food. The Yorn resemble Star Trek tribbles and as such would not be capable of a technological society on their own; the Harika grant them this chance. At the start of the game they are members of the Hegemonic Crux and suffer from the Xchagger virus.

Herald

The current Heralds are an unnamed species which were defeated by the previous Heralds. The Eternal Ones, while destroying all other sentient life, gave the Heralds the choice of oblivion, or becoming their messengers. The Heralds chose the latter fate.

K'tang

The K'tang are small, weak, cowardly worms of low intelligence and cunning. They evolved aware of their own inferiority, among bigger and smarter species. In an unusual display of cunning, the K'tang managed to scavenge or hijack enough sophisticated technology to cobble together Mecha. They killed all competing races, a significant portion of their own species and enslaved those that remained. Despite their powerful weaponry, not a single worm had strategic thought, no warrior lowered himself to running the supply lanes, and no slave was good enough to do it. Each K'tang scrounged whatever weapons he could, then went into battle hiding behind his allies. They encountered the Ploxis Plutocrats, who were looking for some easily controllable muscle to serve them. The K'tang quickly allowed their "allies" to run their logistics and strategy, turning the tide of the war in their favour and forming the Hegemonic Crux. The K'Tang fervently believe that they are the leaders of the Crux, despite admitting that the Ploxis "administrators" tell the K'Tang where to go and who to fight. Their downfall came when the Captain procured the Overlord-Seeking Larvacide missile from the Daktaklakpak and atomized the armoured shell that housed the K'tang King. The naked worm quickly surrendered to the League, and he and his race served as sullen allies for the remainder of the war, lest the League use their weapon and return them to the dirt.

Lk

The Lk are a species of fungus which used to feed on Precursor artifacts. They have a callous view of life, expecting other species to behave the same way.

Owa

An underwater species. Their planet's sun went nova long before the development of its life. All life on their home planet developed from underwater chemical reactions, therefore they have no light sensing abilities.

Ploxis

Not much is known about the Ploxis race, beyond the short history described by a rebel captain of that race, who had spent quite some time in suspended animation. The Ploxis were at once a race that celebrated diversity, and believed deeply in the idea of fairness and of the correlation between success and worthiness as a sentient. This liberal attitude caused them to respect even those who decided that the acquisition of wealth and power should be their primary motivation. By the time the peace-loving Ploxis decided to take a stand against these new thinkers, the Plutocrats, it was too late. The Plutocrats had already made contact with the K'tang, and had swapped technology for servitude. With the K'tang and various Precursor artifacts, the Plutocrats made short work of those Ploxis who wished to cling to the old ways. All that remains of the defeated forces are a few scattered individuals in suspended animation.

Vyro-Ingo

Crustaceans with a full exoskeleton resembling lobsters.

They were non-sentient before being genetically uplifted by the Precursors. They "lost" DNA during this process, and this lost DNA became the VUX. The Vyro-Ingo were left with a sense of genetic inferiority, so they frequently insult others. During the storyline, they can reunite with the VUX.

Xchagger

The Xchagger are a microscopic race of sentient parasites who typically live on Ortogs. While individual Xchaggers are not intelligent, when part of a larger group they form a collective mind. At one time there were many Xchagger colonies, until all but one was exterminated by the Hegemonic Crux. Following this attack, the Daktaklakpak kidnapped many Xchagger (these abductees were known to the last colony as the "Lost Dynasties") and used them as a biological weapon against the Harika & Yorn. Ultimately the Dynasties were extracted from the Harika by advanced technology, and returned to the Xchagger colony.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Francois Laramee". "All Games - Star Control II Review".
  2. ↑ "Greatest Games of All Time - Star Control II".
  3. ↑ "Readers' Choice - The Ten Best Gameworlds".
  4. ↑ "The Ten Best Endings".
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 David McCandless (2001-09-13). "Star Control III - Review". computerandvideogames.com. Retrieved 2010-09-14.
  6. ↑ Tim Soete (2006-10-03). "Star Control 3 - Review".
  7. ↑ "Star Control 3 - Review". 2004-05-06.
  8. ↑ http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/Star_Control_3
  9. ↑ Star Control II manual Page 62
  10. ↑ http://starcontrol.classicgaming.gamespy.com/sc2/sc2_hist2.shtml
  11. ↑ "Log of the 2007-06-13 IRC session with Toys for Bob". Retrieved 2012-03-20.
  12. ↑ Star Control II manual page 63
  13. 1 2 3 4 #StarControl IRC chat - 10-18-1998
  14. ↑ This excerpt is a reply of one of the game's developers from a chat log: "<Fwiffo> In regards to the Androsynth: They were snagged by the entity who/which projected its fingers into our dimension (which looked to us as the Orz.)"
  15. 1 2 Ford, Fred; Reiche III, Paul. Star Control II Role Playing Resource Guide. Illus. George Barr, Jeff Rianda. Accolade. pp. 31, 41.
  16. ↑ The Captain: "C'mon, plants can't be intelligent! Our top scientists and science fiction writers have proved it!" Ala-la'la: "Yes. This has been confirmed by our people as well. Strange, is it not? Many of our people regard this inconsistency as proof of our divine origin." Toys for Bob (November 1992). Star Control 2 PC. Accolade.
  17. ↑ Ala-la'la: "Oh yes, we have a strong cultural bond with the Utwig. They have been the foundation around which we have grown our starfaring culture." Toys for Bob (November 1992). Star Control 2 PC. Accolade.
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