General Information:
Race name: The Dandyfolk
Amount of inhabited systems: 1
Name of National Anthem: Our Yondering Land Of Plenty
The Dandyfolk were originally a far flung colony of a larger interplanetary empire that settled their current world as a small farming colony. In a time of catastrophe which involved a war against a now forgotten foe, the society was sent back to the pre-spaceflight era, and the colony was cut off from its protective greater body. A long semi-dark age ensued, where the colony had to find a way to survive on the planet that was now the extent of their world. After a very short time however, only ten years or so, the society came to the general conclusion that this was not a bad thing at all, settling into what has become a semi utopian if somewhat subdued lifestyle. They christened themselves the Dandyfolk, as they professed their arrival on their home was like a plant that spread its seeds on the wind, and thus finds pleasant and fertile land.
The Dandyfolk live primarily in very small cities, with very few settlements under 100,000 inhabitants, and none over 200,000. These cities are surrounded by large tracts of farming land, situated in the midst of seas of reedlike plants. They have little production infrastructure, as their need for it is not great, having an abundance of food, little population growth, and no real desire for material diversions other than company, literature, and the occasional parade.
Not much is recorded about their history apart from the initial stranding of their people, and occasional farming or technological breakthroughs such as the discovery that the large, wind driven, sticklike creatures that frequented the plains could be used to pull plows and helped pollinate the crops. The Dandyfolk have no great technological drive, as they have no desire for change, their world, which they christened ‘Furrow’ being somewhat of an Utopia for them. Their social drive being more toward knowledge and philosophy, with many different philosophical and sociological movements that converse and debate with each other regularly.
Their social unity and disposition however may allow for great industrial drive if the situation arises, if the initial stranding was anything to go by, as their people worked hard and together to create the society that persists till this day, and accomplished the feat in a very short amount of time.
The Dandyfolk Do not currently have an interest in space, their planet is a paradise to them, and they remember that something awaits them in space that wishes their destruction, though why it has not come for them is uncertain, therefore they keep their feet on the ground, and a half wary eye on the heavens.
The Dandyfolk originate from a race known as the Solarics, who are almost human in appearance, their main physical divergences are a grayish tint to the skin, an extra thumb under the fifth finger, a flatter and slightly wider nose, stronger bone structure, and a startlingly purple pigment to the blood. The Dandyfolk themselves have slightly changed in addition to this, most noticeably in the fact that they are much shorter than the average human or Solaric, being in general around 4 feet 5 inches in height, with the tallest reaching about 5 feet, though there are exceptions.
The governmental structure of the Dandyfolk is decentralized, its settlements each possessing a governmental hall in which all the administration of the settlement is carried out, these halls then communicate with each other via telegram, and large decisions are made by a planetary consensus after consultation with the local citizens. This is not a particularly quick system, but the Dandyfolk are not a particularly quick people, satisfied with the way things are in general.
The Dandyfolk conduct societal events like voting with great pomp and ceremony, governmental figures sporting large colorful hats and built up shoes to make them look taller and more impressive, and marches of the civil peacekeeping force in full ceremonial getup.
The Dandyfolk occasionally bestow a sort of knighthood on those who have done great works for the people, but these are purely ceremonial and hold no political sway, those that hold such a title however are generally well respected in the first place, and so will probably have political sway despite this. The title is passed down to children but with a signifier that shows it was not them but an ancestor that achieved it.
The Capitulators:
Due to the nature of their society, the state employs a political figure for each city known as a “Capitulator”, from a philosophical movement of the same name, whose job is to purposely capitulate to the people’s wishes, this is an odd position, and bears no control in actual politics, but holds a lot of social sway and popular opinion, not least because they agree with everyone unconditionally.
The Dandyfolk's main form of “currency” or at least their equivalent of such a thing is essentially a form of voucher representing a cooked meal or physically packed one in later cases, this was somewhat out of tradition as their society grows in very concentrated pockets spread out throughout their world. Farmers would bring back produce from the countryside and deposit it into the local stocks, in exchange for some excess food to feed themselves the cooks and cleaners and general labor of towns would at varying levels perform their own bits of labor to help out. The advent of currency is a very recent thing as with many farming breakthroughs and such the amount of excess food became troublesome to keep track of for the farming towns, and so pieces of writing then became the norm.
This sort of exchange means the centers of most of their settlements are great villas and furnace areas lined with shops and such oddly making their baking and cooking industries, their most industrial processes.
The Dandyfolk tend not to have much trade between settlements, with only the largest of them being able to sustain the output to facilitate such a thing. This was not helped by the very local nature of their currency as it was very hard to sell someone on sending tons of mind you very delicious food on a cart, in exchange for someone they don't really know miles away giving them some sort of weird machine they've never really heard of before.
The process of accumulating wealth or access currency is somewhat frowned upon in their society as at best many people would call you a stick in the mud for not indulging yourself to some degree, and at worst many see it as selfish as having that much wealth but not contributing it to a community is somewhat bizarre in their culture.
Most of the Dandyfolk's raw resource gathering throughout history had been troubled by their planet's tendency for rain, as mines would slowly be flooded without people bucketing or hand pumping water out of them. However once their society became more industrial the dandy folk began to use this water richness to their benefit, many of their mining operations rather than being done with something like drills or explosives carried out with water pumps or cannons. The relative cheapness of something like biofuel and a water cannons capability to clear out the softer soil of the planet with ease made the gathering of material as simple as scooping out the last remaining clumps of hardened material, and pumping the remaining water into filters. However this mining is very slow paced usually as there isn't very much demand at a given time for things like iron and copper, due to the relatively lightly industrialized state of the dandy folk and their tendency to build things very durable against the elements.
Most everything they produce has some element of nature in it whether it be plant like fibers or compounds made from plants, things like piping for example are almost exclusively made through very densely packed plant fibers and insulating plastic like layers holding it together. Their designs for machines most commonly imitate the animals they have on their planet such as windmills for example, being based on the structure of their work animals and how they move often making for more intricate designs.
The largest use of higher value materials in their society actually takes place in the sector of toy making, as while they may not have many machines things like magnets, cogs and gears go great for things such as toy windmills or vehicles. This has the side effect of making children some of the biggest drives of technological breakthrough, as they learn about machinery at a very young age by breaking and putting back together small machines.
The Dandyfolk at present occupy but a single planet, that they christened “Furrow”, the planet consists of large plains of spongy soft soil covered in huge reedlike plants, the ground while soft is extremely fertile, and the planet’s orbit and atmosphere consistent enough that it exists in a sort of permanent springtime, allowing the growth of crops all year round, the world is covered in a thin layer of wispy clouds that form from a large water table and provide regular light rainfall, with an occasional storm once every few months, it is after such storms that the stars become greatly visible for a small period, as apart from such times the clouds greatly obscure any view of space. The planet possesses a few modest mountain ranges upon which the planet’s only varieties of native trees grow, and provide the only reliable access the Dandyfolk have to ores such as iron, the rest of the planet being generally unsuitable for large scale mining.
The planet’s ecosystem consists of large areas of native plantlife, mostly the aforementioned reedlike plants, with small flowers and shrubs in coexistence, the fauna of the planet are mainly birds, mostly flightless, and of subtle but pretty appearance. There are also some larger creatures, but their classification is rather odd, they are plantlike in their biology, but possess rudimentary intelligence of a level that means they can be used as work animals, they also possess little motive power of their own, using the planet’s constant light winds to drive them by catching the breeze in large sail like membranes.
These animals also provide mobile homes for colonies of beelike insects who live within their hollow body structure as symbiotes, and provide the animal with both pollination and food in the form of nectar from other plants, this is also how the plants of this world are pollinated, as these creatures move throughout the great plains the insects use them as a mobile base of operations, if you will.
The Dandyfolk possess little military, their only forces being civil peacekeepers, they possess the knowledge to produce laser or magnetic driven weapons in small quantities, and have an extremely small stock of these in each town for emergencies, they also utilize weapons which drive water at high velocities, such as the water cannon they also use for mining operations. These weapons are used almost entirely in ceremonial roles, though the guards are fully trained in their use and maintenance.
The Dandyfolk also possess a small amount of antiquated Solaric vessels, twenty shuttles with light laser armament and sublight drives, two small Fighter-Interceptors with light laser armament and two Ship to Ship heavy missiles, and two corvette sized vessels that possess heavy laser and kinetic armament, these ships while old have been kept in good working condition, ready for the day that they may have to be used.
Each city also has an emplaced defense, hidden somewhere in preparation for times of need.
Civil Technology:
The dandyfolk in most cases have far higher technology than they actually utilize due to their limited ability to produce specialized components, and what little they do have seem to be shifted to either the means of toy making or medical technology. For this reason despite being very capable of producing space age parts and components, most settlements primarily use industrial era technology often without something as commonplace modern day as a computer.
The most punctuated sector in terms of technology as stated before would have to be the medical sector, not only do they have modern day treatments but they have become extremely skilled at using natural elements in their environment for high quality medical supplies such as wound sealing herbal creams, rapid cooling ice packs, and naturally bred pseudo symbiotic life forms working as things like IV bags even if such a thing is reminiscent of medieval times. However they lack many forms of artificial limbs such as legs and arms, not only due to its rarity on their world but due to the inability to produce the expensive components used in them.
The fuel of the society is primarily derived through a quite energy dense biofuel made from plant oils and compressed reeds, while not quite as good as something like petroleum its able to be made consistently out of excess and rotting food making it incredibly convenient for their society.
In terms of industrial energy supply the dandy folk either use large biofuel burning plants or more commonly use massive windmills that tower into the sky, these windmills are nearly the size of cathedrals and described as stone giants amongst the population. Able to produce a relatively large and more importantly constant source of power due to the winds of the planet, however during storms the dandy folk often risk having their power systems overloaded.
The storage of this energy is done using dams largely constructed out of their own form of concrete a substance that due to its polluting nature is mostly used in conjunction with plant fibers holding it together as large stabilization pieces for buildings, the construction of dams modern day at least in terms of their main structure is done through a sort of more ecological plastic used in massive quantity to keep these structures up.
In regard to the production of their technology, the dandy folk almost always prioritize quality over speed of production, as they have limited resources the objects that they do make are made to last and last they do. Many objects such as clothing are known to be capable of lasting for hundreds of years quite literally outliving the people they were made for, due to this they are slow to expand their supplies of goods but when they do it it's a rather permanent affair.
Military Technology:
The Dandyfolk possess the knowledge to produce laser and magnetic driven weaponry in small quantities, they also have the capacity to create high level reactive armours, and the knowledge but not currently capability to create low level energy shielding. They possess blueprints and two working models of a faster than light transport system, the Nonspace drive, all of these technological wonders have been reverse engineered or passed down from the equipment they landed on the planet with initially.
In terms of innovation, they have invented a variety of nonlethal weapons such as injector dart guns that carry a harmless but highly soporific drug synthesized from plants native to the planet, they also utilize extremely high pressure water cannon, that can be nonlethal, or on higher settings extremely deadly.
The Nonspace Drive:
Nonspace was a realm discovered by the Solarics early into their foray into space, and was quickly utilized for faster than light travel, nonspace exists parallel to our own space, contains nothing, and is pale gray, this is all that is known about it, apart from the fact that it is the most boring aspect of space known to exist in any plane by any species to transcend the bounds of our own. Nonspace is so boring in fact that even inanimate objects want to get out of it with great speed, meaning that faster than light velocity can be achieved purely by entering it, the speed of travel in nonspace is greatly improved if all forms of recreation are removed for the duration of travel, old solaric protocols dictated that only simple food was served, and the crew are encouraged not to interact with each other.
Faction made in collaboration with @Dafeeeeeeeeeesh
