The ideas are comming along nicely now...

<sub>In a long forgotten niche of the universe, vastly removed from the reach of humans, an ancient planet named Tik'al continues it's story...

[14 - 4 Billion Years ago]
In a far off globular cluster imagine a world, like our's, where inteligent life arose and engineered every cubic inch of their solar system especially their home planet where most of our focus shall remain. The world flourished for eons untill their star began to die, seeing as how their star was similar to ours(I.E. relatively small in mass) it burned for roughly 8 billion years. In a last ditch effort to prevent their world, the life contained upon it, and all traces of their history, from turning into a molten cauldren they mustered the highest of their technology and resources to build a massive reflective platform (initially)in circular orbit. This saved their world from being destroyed during their star's death throws, know to us as a planetary nebula. Once It's flames were extinguished the reflective platform slowly rotated to a polar orbit, there it provided the world with the heat it would so badly need in a system without a sol. As luck and foresight would have it, although the surface was significantly damaged, life arose again, from the depths of their planetary core, converted long ago to a cooling system for the many sleeping reactors peppered throughout the sphere. Life started to take back It's foothold, the inteligence that was this world's savior returned, repaired core systems including what remined of the orbital platform, reseeded life that was expunged from the surface in the cataclysm, then promptly left for other more grandiose designs. As time passed the race of preservation slowly faded from memory as did their recollections of "home" which to them had long since become that of the stars. The life, abandoned as well as forgotten upon a world of extreme stability and long age began to evolve...
[...4 - 1 Billion Years ago]
The remanents of our world's host star has decayed from a white to a warm red glow, otherwise known as a red dwarf. The only thing keeping our globe from freezing over, the exceedingly ancient orbital platform. A significant portion of the animal life entailed hear in has adapted to 3/4 of the day being shined upon by integrating chloroplasts into their organelles thus getting energy from sunlight as well as from prey. Yet another usefull aspect of this is the severe cut in oxygen consumption by said animals. Meanwhile the plants have largely died out and have been replaced by "lichen" trees, these lichen differ from those were familiar with on Earth by having a vascular structure similar to plants, a sign of it's symbiotic evolutionary path with moss like organisms. Here invertebrates have evolved internal as well as external skeletons, via the notochord evolutionary path, giving them the ability to get much larger. Initially they all evolved from ocean going organisms akin to colonizing shrimp. Soon these "insectoid-vertebrates" became the dominant animal life upon our world. Now that we have a framework from here I can only say "let the world spin"...
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1st Charater Species - Zaz (The tree dwellers.)
Habitat - Temperate to tropical forest. Planet wide during it's last stage of development.
Life Cycle - As a nymph it fuses to one of the last species of tree's seed, once fused the tree starts to grow and the nymph seeks out an appropriate home for both. The tree will be in the comming time it's shelter, mutualistic symbiant, and purpose for being. Once the tree is established the zaz defendes the tree with it's life, kills and consumes predators of the plant, feeds the plant, and clears away competing foliage. Although the zaz is initially fused to the tree, once it as well as the tree reaches a significant enough size, it seals it's self inside the tree, there it metamorphs into a fertile adult and breaks free. Once free it still retains the ability to symbiotically fuse with the tree, but it's purpose switches from defender to pack hunter and gatherer for the purpose of it's "hive". A Zaz "hive" can grow extemely large given it's not destroyed by competion from such life forms as large Ohms, or Lichen trees. The tree is a highly evolved colonizing fern that can initially house up to 6 Zaz, depending upon size and health. When an extremely large Ohm destroys most of a Zaz's territory the last of the remaining Zaz becomes exceedingly fertile and develops into it's last stage as a warrior. Once it starts developing to full size it gorges on it's tree's seeds and fruit while living within the tree. The tree fruiting is also a reaction to the Ohm's destructive cycle of "clear cutting" through the Zaz territory. When the Zaz is ready with enough of it's kind, they start a hunting party to get vengence upon the Ohm responsible, and unbeknownst to them to start a new forest. The problem with this is that if the Ohm kills to many Zaz and their tree's, the Zaz cannot launch an acceptable attack upon the Ohm horde thus they must seek out another hive to become a part of. Once in dirrect conflict with an Ohm and having destroye'd the Ohm's "defender parasites", The Zaz pack seeks out a weak point upon the Ohm's armor to pierce, once inside they voraciously destroy tissue, and release en masse their eggs as well as the seeds they consumed earlier. The Zaz larvae fuse with a seed as soon as they can move through the Ohm's systems, once they do they eat as much tissue as they can until either the Ohm's death or it's had it's fill, in which case it burrows to the surface and attemps to make a quick getaway from the Ohm's defensive parasites. The Ohm can live half it's life span without even being crippled by Zaz infection. A large colony of Zaz consists of a few casts like an ant hive, nymphs, drones, warriors, and even the occasional queen. Specializing is triggered by filling neiches in the hive as well as nutritional changes in the individual Zaz's den tree. Every zaz starts as a nymph, and once free from it's parent tree it developes into a drone. After turning into a drone it will eventually change into a exceedingly fertile queen or a heavily armored warrior depending upon predation and the abundance of sustinance. Depicted here is a typical Zaz Drone.
Size Length - (2 cm - 20 m)
Lifespan - (average - 6 years, maximum - 85 years), depending upon conditions
Concept Sketch - [link]
Concept Drawing - [link]
Full On Drawing -[link]
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2nd Character Species - Ohm (The scourge)
Habitat - Planetwide excluding oceans
Life Cycle - Extremely voracious eaters that grow to immense size, while young they are small and provide much of the life on our planet with a necessary keystone species. They are responsible for the near destruction of the Zaz habitat, and massive tracts of lichen forest. Once they reach a "critical mass", and once in the midst of reaching crittical mass they become fertile. During the last stages before their critical mass they become a walking eco-system providing home to a species of "defensive parasites" and a few plant species.
Size/Length - (around 10 cm - .5 km)
Lifespan - (average - 1/2 a year , maximum - 120 Years)
Concept Sketch - [link]
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3rd Character Species - Tulaj (The void walkers)
Habitat - Around unused infrastructure and caves. Generally widespread at night.
Life Cycle - [WIP]
Lifespan - [WIP]
Size Length - (around 8 cm - 16 m)
Concept Sketch - [WIP]</sub>

...[Infinate WIP]...
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Responsibilities -
Affiliation - [ Pending A Special Large Project. ]
Friends - & so many more not listed here...